Pre-craft isn't hugely different compared to post-craft honestly. 51s, if anything, gave more people the chance to become reasonably tanky as Feathers were a rare item, as were Zeit hearts. However Templar damage wasn't hugely influenced by 51s, at least not those who had 4x Feathers under their belt already. The problem with craft Templar only had to buy 51s in order to become on par with 4x feathers(in other words, reach their highest damage potential), other classes would hit harder with 4x feathers, but that meant sacrificing a lot of HP(2.5k-5k depending on class, fully buffed and scrolled, at a time when 15k HP was huge).
I played on a number of private servers that had craft but no staff buffing, and I can tell you that Templars in 51s are regarded as weak(despite everyone and their mother running on 20% licenses and alm scroll) so it's not like I haven't seen how balanced the game could've been, had YNK decided to nerf Temps back then.