Very Easy work orders give almost no xp; I think my level 6 outfitter was getting 15xp per A-grade item when I did them the other day, which even at level 6 is very small potatoes. On the other hand, all but the highest Very Easies (those highest in the list) seem to cause no complications, so it's a risk v reward thing.
If you mouse over the progress and quality bars on the default UI, you'll see your progress in percentage form. Similarly I know there's a command to echo crafting xp to the chat window, but I don't know what it is. Instead, I use Drox's quite outstanding
UI mod and am happy to shamelessly plug it. If it's not your visual style, there are several other mods out there which look different but probably provide the same info. (Note that these mods don't garner any illicit info - they just present what's there in a more accessible format.) The thing I like best about Drox's UI on the crafting side, is that the crafting interface has numerical counters for both progress and quality - no need to mouse over anything, which is nice.
EDIT - this thread has moved far away from the original venting (which is no bad thing). If a moderator sees this and is feeling generous, and these boards allow it, could we split it into a new thread from about post 23? There's some interesting info being shared that is only distantly related to my original need to blow off some steam.
