Crafting naked does help, at least it used to. The power consumed by your tradeskill button is a % of your total possible power. Im just going to throw a number out, lets say it takes 10% of your power per push. Well if your geared/buffed power is 2000 it will take 200 power per push. Well lets say you take your gear and buffs off and you only have 1000 power. Then it would take 100 power per push. When your power regenerates it does a certain amount per tick reguardless of what armor you have (unless it is some sort of armor that has power regen I suppose). So it makes sense that it is quicker to regenerate 100 power instead of 200 power.
That is how it was back when I played the first time (around march of this year). I haven't messed with artisan stuff since I recently got back in.
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Hi