I've got the "how to make an item" bit down.

Now I need a thorough explanation on how to use Enhancements. How it works, what it will and will not do, etc. Has such an explanation been compiled already?

Enhancements are part of custom crafting.

1) Get one of the base blueprints for your skill/specialization (they have no stats beyond PD & ED).
Attachment 8145
2) Get Enhancements that fits that slot (Secondaries take 1 Minor, Primaries take 1 Major and 1 Minor). A list can be found here.

3) Find the base in your list, it will be in italics.
Attachment 8146
4) Select Enhancements and quality.
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5) Create the item.

Exactly what I wanted. THank you very much.

Question: is there any immediate benefit to choosing a higher quality?

Higher quality means better stats and higher component cost, just like the normal items. Some modifiers do see little benefit from high quality, most notably the Power Cost Reductions (Catalyst, Atomic & Primal) where the main benefit is static across levels and quality.

Note that won't be true for much longer for those, they are getting rating points as outlined in the catalyst thread.

Which will be a welcome change. Having a level 27 White be just as effective as a level 40 Purple feels very wrong.

You are right there WK.. Now if we could sort the Random Naming of some Items out of the Phraser..for body parts. Im ok with Monstrous wrapped spleen but some things are better left on the School Biology dissection table.

I never seem to have enough components to make the higher-level enhanced items. That's with a focus on deconstructing drops. Is there a secret to getting enough besides buying them on the AH? I had to buy a stack of Yentsao Disciplines and the prices were *crazy*.

the secret is farming items and dismantling them is part of the "endgame". Higher quality drops (which have higer chances off higher difficulty mobs) are supposed to decon into more of the better components.. but for the most part each crafting school is completely bottle necked by 1 green component for the most part.

quick way to see this accelerated is count how many times you have to completely fill your invo with gear from debugger on PTS and than decon and sell it to get enough of Renton notes (science) to make a blue level 38 crafted item. (think it takes like 46 for a primary, 8 for a secondary, and a complete fill and decon of you inventory of the level 40 yellows usually nets you 6-10).

I basically leveled 3 alts to 400 crafting on PTS off debugger and every single one of them is at <5-10 of the highest needed green component, yet has 600-700 of the lower components never being used (not the ones you can mass transform into the green ones though....)

Part of the reason I don't even try to make above the level 38 crafteds on live is because how long it would take me to get the 70+ purple components form unity to make one of the purple crafteds (that don't have decent stats for most of my builds)