This issue is just a lower level issue because crafted stat items get better with quality and level. Common drop weapons have no stats but are a second faster in CD but the same damage as crafted weapons. Crafted weapons have stats but at low levels the stats are negligible since they improve at higher levels and quality. So in the first zone or two, common drop weapons are better than crafted but once your penetration gets into double digits and higher, plus dmg bonus and haste bonuses (like on lvl 20+ cedar weapons and some oak) then crafted will be better. Remember, 1 sec cooldown only affects autoattacks, and once you have a bar of abilities to mash, then cd's on weapons won't mean much but penetration on a weapon affects all abilities its used in for example. Expect to visit a training dummy at higher levels to test stats.
Named weapons that are dropped are better than both above. Weapons like Thieves blade, Outlook Staff, Smithy hammer, Woodsman longbow are far better than anything else at their level and last a player quite a few levels.
