Artificing is a mess. How do you chummers handle it?

If you go by the rules in the core book, you're nearly guaranteed to fail or fall short of your target focus, because things get ridiculous numbers of dice to resist you.

If you go by the rules in Street Grimoire, you can retire to a life of luxury with just magic 6, artificing 6, and artisan 6, because your lodge will let you easily make a ludicrous force 9 focus out of a force 1 formula and a handful of reagents. (if you grab alchemy/arcana as well, you don't even have to pay for the formula or the pittance of reagents, either)

There doesn't seem to be any middle ground between "utterly worthless" and "it prints money"... I was planning to make my own talismonger PC, but I'm not sure how to deal with this issue. I'd rather not waste skill ranks in a useless skill, but I'd also rather not be so preposterously loaded with cash that I have no reason to shadowrun.