When I tried them out in Sakray, here's what I thought was wrong with them:
there can only be 4 at a time, two magical and two physical, that's not enough to do anything;
they die in one skill hit from mobs, 5k HP is a joke for any mobs beyond the 99s;
the fact that the magical and physical ones use different mats to make means the mats all need to be carries;
they last too short, by the time the last of 4th FAW was made, the first one had to be remade again, keeping the player in an endless loop;
the fact that each FAWs mats weigh heavily at 62/75 weights each mean at the most you can make 100 per full cart - entire cart full gave 15 min worth at the most, nowhere near enough to be any use of WoE or PvM, or, hell, MVP too, since they again die in one hit;
speaking of WoE, they MISS against players in pvp;
and the mats are expensive, in Renewal Chaos market, they would cost 10kz+ each one. I was glad that Sakray had free money.
The design itself is not really for a 3rd classers. An Alchemist, can out DPS the FAWs, a transcendent 3rd class skill, with plants which are pretranscendent 2nd class skills.
So to recap, for them to be any use for me, they need to make it so that:
get rid of the stupid limit on how many there can be;
increase their basic stats;
simplify and reduce their mats(i.e. just wrenches and fuels or something)
make them last at least 5 min(300 sec).