So, I may be wrong, but it seems that not having a crucible loaded constantly at 50% will cause the quality of the steel to decrease.
Here is my problem with this: Even players who spend a lot of time playing are going to have problems keeping the crucible loaded at 50%. Even in a large village with people from all over the world there are going to be periods when nobody is online, so someone cannot always watch the crucibles.
This is, however, a great job for a macro. Just take a throwaway character, put the crucible near a tree, write a program, and you are set.
This seems so painful for a player to do, while so easy to use a macro to accomplish, that I wonder if there is something I am not getting.