the knight's sword req doesn't seem very new player friendly, i get that its an easy quest, but you'd want to be able to jump into crafting without too much of a smithing reliance especially if the goal is to lower the requirement of making some jewellery from 20
for that same reason, having a smithing requirement as high as elder rune to make alchemical onyx things doesn't sit well with me either.
point of clarification: the brooch is what requires elder rune, making an eof does not, i don't think you can use it as a baseline when the only two items that use the gem aren't even consistent with eachother in what items they require