Unsure if a bug, oversight, or intent but; Crafting items found which are combinations (Such as the Artisanal Pick Head; ingot + metal tip (ingot) + filagree (wire, so ingot) for 3 combined stats) will only have the stat of a single ingredient making almost everything you find completely pointless, really makes finding chests such a letdown.
This is also the case for a number of quest rewards as well. They typically do not have characteristics reflective of all their parts, as they would if players were to craft them.
There are some parts that come in the form of what you would want them made of, but once it comes to combined pieces they are indeed just decon garbage :( Would be interesting if they weren't to see what you could do in a playthrough with found pieces only.
That Aid POI sounds like a pain unless it had a prebuilt teleporter at it, due to having to go back then cart the stuff over. Even then all you're getting from these is Essence which runs out of use.
Used to be we got lots of potions that no one was using because it was difficult to swap into the quick-use slot.
Now that we have a quickslot wheel, they removed potions and instead gave us junk.
Looks like Reclaim recipes are gone (probably because of potential exploits) so we're left with piles of stuff that's just for decon.
I feel they should have a variation of the Aid POI where instead of building simple structures for an NPC, you supply them with assorted goods, e.g., 10 rifles plus 1000 rifle rounds; or 10 wood axes of at least T2 grade. This would be a nice sink for leftover materials when you don't have to care too much about the stats on the gear.