Indeed, deduction, while of course important, is downstream from conceptualization. If you begin with muddled concepts, your deductions aren't good for anything. Even a small error in the beginning leads to big errors in the end.
And strictly speaking, mechanical deduction is a simulation of deduction that exploits the formal properties of propositions. You cannot analyze the conceptual terms (e.g., predicates) in this fashion because, by definition, the content of those terms are exactly what formalism excludes. Formalism provides us with essentially this: that we can deduce the shape of the (or a) conclusion regardless or for any such terms from the shapes of the premises alone with no concern for the concepts involved.
And strictly speaking, mechanical deduction is a simulation of deduction that exploits the formal properties of propositions. You cannot analyze the conceptual terms (e.g., predicates) in this fashion because, by definition, the content of those terms are exactly what formalism excludes. Formalism provides us with essentially this: that we can deduce the shape of the (or a) conclusion regardless or for any such terms from the shapes of the premises alone with no concern for the concepts involved.