I tend to agree that TL seems to be built to fit the range rather than the range set for anything useful. TLs below 8 almost make sense as there is a way to tie them into actual technology advances (but I cannot hand on heart say it does a good job of that). Once you move into future stuff it all gets a bit notional.
I am also not convinced it is that useful other than as short hand to differentiate levels of equipment. I think that is a function of price point rather than any innate technology since once you have an advanced enough fabricator you can make anything and once you have any sort of trade there is no reason not to have an advanced fabricator (and you only need to import one as fabs can make fabs). The defining limitation on manufacturing should be availability of raw materials (and power) and that should be properly tied into trade codes.
That isn't to say you cannot invent random reasons for a particular TL (particularly for systems that do not have spaceports and thus trade opportunities), but doing it by default as part of the world generation process for every system is probably overkill in a post fabricator universe. The way TL is generated makes sense for what the planet may require, but not for what it is capable of manufacturing. So maybe that is the clue, high TL systems have high TL stuff available, because there is a market, not because there is a manufacturing base, but a market will tend to drive a local manufacturing base simply for surety of supply (but that manufacturing base may not be efficient enough to be able to export - once you add KCr1 per DTon/Parsec in shipping fees).
If fabricators were more expensive than making stuff by traditional methods you could justify lower tech manufacturing, but that doesn't appear to be the case as the cost of making a fabricated product seems to average half the product cost for materials (but could be as low as 10%). Since you can print a TL1 dagger in a TL8 fabricator for on average Cr5 in 2 hours by pressing a button it is hard to see how making one with a forge could use less materials or be faster. A factory of metal presses etc. could be faster, but it will either require much more equipment (and power) and probably a larger workforce. All that adds cost and retooling for a different product would be an ongoing expense. As the usual factors in manufacturing cost are materials cost and labour costs, I don't see enough wiggle room.
This forces a conclusion that hand-made should be more expensive (which would fit with real world trend for manufacturing costs to drop as technology advances, but means that lower tech worlds would be logically limited to producing raw materials rather than products. We already have this from trade codes.
The only way I can see to continue to have a manual manufacturing workforce is artificially limiting fabs/technology. I am also inclined to say fabs cannot produce anything other than average quality, so the hand made stuff could be saleable because it is lower (and even cheaper) or higher quality. With a finely made weapon for example multiplying the cost by 2-6 times per attribute a Lethal Dagger could command Cr60 and be a more attractive export for a system that became renowned for them, much like real world cities became renowned for high quality products (e.g. Toledo for sword steel).
This has probably been hashed over millions of times in many forums, so it is likely an article of faith rather than fact.
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