One node is much too little to obtain a satisfactory amount of trace, so I will either leave them all as I had them, or remove only a few where the connection network was long and expensive.
On the other hand, it is usually the case that right next to the trace node I have a connector to another node that I use, so deleting the trace node does not make sense.

Exactly, picking fruit by hand may give you a lot of it, but we waste valuable energy that can be used for something more valuable, e.g. meat, blood or wood. With trace the situation is even worse because their drop is not very large if we are serious about alchemy.

Kinda dumb that you're still getting the old useless traces pouring in so converting them now is just a waste of time.

They will be transformed next week, KR just had that patch. PA does that in 2 patches apparently, like with the black stones.

THIS!  I fear that this will destroy the next parts of the economy as well. I have slowly but steadily made most of my money selling all this stuff. Whats next? Will there be only wood, fruits, greens? It's sad

Bdo has no economy.

The main reasons for this are:

1. minimum and maximum prices set by PA

2. too low production multiplier which causes the resulting item to be cheaper than the materials used to produce it.

3. sick 35% tax that takes away the entire, even the minimum, profit from production.

That's why we have materials on the market in millions of pieces that no one wants, and hundreds or even thousands of preorders, e.g. for furniture that no one wants to produce.

I dont like dumbing down the system to lowest common denominator, presumably to cater demands of simpletons unable to handle anything more complex than elementary-grade arithmetics. It breeds mediocrity.

I like it. There were so many traces/fruits that just sat in storage for me because the were for specific elixirs... that I did not use. Now, I have an abundance of the same kind of trace/fruit that I can use for the elixirs that I do make. Sure wish I had thought ahead and bought up all those low-priced traces/fruits before the announcement came out. Oh well. Plus I've got the extra room in storages. 

I am very happy with the changes. I had never done elixir crafting before so when I heard the news I prepared some mats like Truffles etc.

I will never have to craft again! Too lazy to turn greens to blue but Ill do it eventually. Love this update.

I also don't like the changes at all. While the simplification to black stones was probably justified and reasonable, changes to crafting/life skills are a whole different matter. The entire appeal of that kind of thematic is the variety, else all the professions/skills are just interchangable and dull. Those traces/essences/fruits had different rarities, prices and ways to obtain them. Now when you just lump everything together, what's the point in maintaining different worker nodes? Instead of over-simplifying alchemy, they should have made it more useful so that the resulting products are no longer cheaper than materials used to craft them. In its current state, alchemy is a very good method to burn your silver and this "simplification" did nothing to help with that.