Cresties do well with access to spaces a little above room temp, so a small heat lamp at an appropriate power level (dimmer, or better a thermostat) isn't necessarily useless.
A 12 x 12 x 18 isn't enough room for an adult crestie, and I don't think it is even close. An 18 x 18 x 24 is quite marginal IME. I found that cresties (kept in pairs, but space use by a single isn't much different) seemed most comfortable with about 100 gallons of space. No, I'm not kidding -- they're big and active and are best provided with a choice of a couple decent hiding areas (they seem to like cork rounds a lot).
Having live plants in a crestie enclosure can be beneficial -- the plants add humidity, and if chosen appropriately can be good climbing structures (very sturdy vining plants that are tight on hardscape; ficus and bromeliads and others that are commonly used aren't all that great of choices). But as for attempting to process poop in the enclosure -- since cresties tolerate substrate replacements just fine, and since plants can be grown in pots, and since cresties don't reliably eat the microfauna, and since most "bioactive" enclosures aren't all that bioactive anyway -- there's really no reason to do more than provide a naturalistic enclosure that is designed for the specific space usage habits of the gecko.
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