Unfortunately, it makes sense. If you had 100% chance for being able to craft an item after RE'ing it, the markets would be overflooded with higher tier items because anyone would be able to just RE them and build their own. So, you run an operations instance and win an a very RARE item, RE it, then sell it. Someone with very high cash flow buys your overpriced hard earned effort, then RE it and does the same but undercuts your price. Repeat with other people who save up on their credits. You have a pricing war and an eventual collapse of that market, and some reasons to repeat the operations mission.
Basically, it rewards those who are very bold to try RE'ing as a profession. They find an item by questing, they RE it and find themself with an ability to make that piece. It's not a dead end if you fail in being able to obtain a schematic. You can spend some credits to have more chances to being able to RE stuff.
How far are you going to go to be able to sell more on the market and diversify?