When droppers and other containers are filled up using a hopper the items try to stack up before going to the next slot, but when filling up a crafter they try to spread as far as possible before stacking. Also, a comparator cannot "weigh" a crafter's content, it can just detect how many of its slots are filled. This is kind-of a follow-up to MC-265910, explained by Purplers here and by gamingguidesde here.

NOTE: This bug report does NOT aim to destroy crafters even further, it actually is a request to revert crafters and copper bulbs to their 23w45a behaviour! The redstone community loved the crafter and redstone bulb because of their uniqueness, now that they both have been made more similar to completely different blocks in the game they aren't as useful anymore!

The minecraft world with the Crafty Crafter Counter and the piston wave is attached to this report, a video demonstrating it can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p4WCrGfUkGQ0hhP2w_AnVOQY-i4tGWmy/edit?disco=AAABAsqeBfM