It seems the crafting equipment/upgrade is too convoluted. My suggestion that might be better if you are intent on just having just two augments per equipment; why not just put augments already attached to the equipment as an upgrade path? The augments are separate objects based on the location of it near the crafting equipment why not just make a visual representation within the equipment if the upgrade is selected instead of having a lot of objects scattered about? An example is the hunting horn and the workstation, if hunting horn is activated workstation will change visually showing the hunting horn attached to it. This is better than having a lot of different objects scattered around....
The whole thing is flat out dumb! tether distance too low, everything is clumped up, or your forced to build almost every augment multiple times! and they don't tether through walls... absolute disaster. And then, plows and beehives... are they for gardening or crafting tools? PICK ONE! so I can put it outside. Crafting with a PLOW!?
As the person above me mentioned, the range should be larger. I think many of us would like to have a dedicated crafting area in our base. Placing augments everywhere is a bit annoying, especially like I did at first, creating each augment thinking that the workbenches would only activate the highest-level augments. I don't feel like that's the case.
I agree that there is still some work to be done for the augment system. I'd like an option for them to reach through walls, and maybe turning them off/on in the crafting stations? Maybe through the inspect menu on the crafting stations you can make the icons activating buttons, and the augments can just have a larger "house" range?
Or something in line with the original post - a one time build, and you choose from the augments you have "upgraded" the bench with