hmm yeah i thought i said something like that before.
as far as specific recipes though, in an ideal situation to me, it would still be like you said, you have a basic, generic recipe, like with slots or whatever, and you can experiment with different things in the slots or something, and if you made a successful item that item would show up in your menu or something. it might add like, another layer to the crafting menus, i don't know, there are definitely some interface issues. but maybe instead of craft > metalworking > weapons > and a selection of bay 12 axe, bronze sword, militia sword, and soldier's sword, you would have craft > metalworking > weapons > and "axe" and "sword", and clicking one of those would bring up both a crafting window with slots, for experimentation and such, and then on the menu you would have any crafting discoveries you've learned. i don't know though, that's a lot of damn menus.