I haven't played live in a long time (since TLE servers started), so maybe this is normal - Where is the max level gear? Everything i'm seeing, looting, crafting stops around 115. I've gotten a few 116, some 118 and 2 120 (one was sig weapon) and most of the 116 - 120 gear isn't any better than the 115 you get from solo. I've managed to level all my CA's to journeyman and that was a major upgrade. Some CA's with original max damage around 8.6 million would jump to 9.5 million when upgraded to journeyman. I've gotten 10 or so of the new tradeskill boooks, but 0 have been for alchemist and i had 1 SK adept book drop and sold it for 120K and also have found 3 patterns for horse gear and 1 chaos (purple text) item from research quests. Overall i can run a solo in 15-20 mins but nothing is an upgrade, so it's all being broken down.
You can still use them in crafting Grandmaster Ascensions, I think. Using a recipe component search from EQ2U, that's what I see.
Only the old grandmasters. The new BoL recipes do not use any spellshards or foundations for grandmasters.