Re: Why I would never recuit a priest smith.
 

Yep, he's capital only, which is a good thing. It makes sure they don't eclipse the master smiths, but early on they may do so until yo get more castles.

AFAIK 3.15 is going to be somewhat of an interim patch, it was rushed out to eliminate the scale bug and the other stuff was crammed on because it was feasible and KO had a week of holiday to work on such things.

Re: Why I would never recuit a priest smith.
 

If I didn't recruit a priest smith, it would be because the regular smiths are actually pretty good mages for the price. I think people underestimate them. And before you get that all-important (at least to me) astral random on your smith, I try to recruit as many smiths as possible.

After getting an astral one and researching the iron blizzard stuff, yeah, priest smiths would be pretty sweet.