Hehehe sorry to contradict you, but for those who bought their way up to cap transmuting first on the server there has been lots, and lots of profits. Our transmuter made her money back and then more in about a week. She's now in the top 30 richest player on the server, and was not even in the top 100 before all of this started.
I too find the new tradeskills pretty lame IMO. Sure, adornments are cool, yet get the 'not working as intended typical SOE answer'. Thus being nerfed, tweaked etc. Not to mention ppl that leveled up tinkering the hard way just like transmuters and just not able to make much money back because most of the stuff needs you to have tinkering skills to use.
I havent logged in to play in 2 weeks now, aside from an occasional night to go and raid with my guild. I have absolutely no interest in anything else this game has to offer anymore. New zones, new tradeskills, new instances, new mobs, same crappy kind of rushed and broken content at launch. It's really getting old.
/rant off