It's all basically skippable unless you want to do it. Dungeon sets, Trial sets, and Arena sets are primarily what people use anyway, there are crafters available both in guilds and in zone chats if you need something besides that, and most things can be purchased from guild vendors.

You're just going to need a ton of gold. And to be happy to miss out on all of the benefits of having a crafter, which are many.

But there's nothing necessary about it.

But even if you skip it you won't escape the grind. There's a lot of grind involved in obtaining dungeon, trial, and arena sets, too. Just a different kind of grind. Ask me how many times I had to run Scalecaller to get Jorvuld's, or White Gold to get SPC, or how much time I'm spending in Stonefalls lately to get a 5 piece of Silks of the Sun for my solo PVE loadout, or how many times I've unsuccessfully attempted to PUG vBF for an Earthgore helm, or ...

The list goes on and on and on. It's a pretty grindy game.