So let's keep this one simple. My goal by the end of MoP is to have one of every class to 90. Thing is, that is not going to take particularly long, given my altitis and the fact that my hours keep me from raiding all that much. Thus my secondary goal: I want to profession-optimize my account.
What do I mean by this? Simple enough. I want more than just every profession maxed, I want the ones with significant benefit to have more than one up there for things like quests, tokens, and specs. Here's the thing, I don't really have experience with that many of the professions at mid to high-end. So I have a couple of questions.
1) Other than Alchemy, are there any professions that show a significant difference between specializations at high-end? I know at least Blacksmithing and Leatherworking HAVE specializations, but the question is if they make a significant difference.
2) Other than Jewelcrafting and Cooking, are there any that you need to farm tokens for? I don't THINK there are, but I'm not sure so I wanted to ask here.
3) Are there any particular class/spec combos that benefit in combat from the gathering professions? Right now I have my Prot Warrior as a miner and I'm going to designate one of my other characters (probably my DK) as Herbalist/Skinner, but if anything can legitimately benefit from them then now is the time to switch it over.
I'm not in this to get rich (I have enough gold already that by the time my characters get up in level, I'll be able to get them all onto 280 mounts), it's all just a personal thing (and to help all those random people who need stuff in trade). Thanks in advance for any help and advice.
-Entero of Aerie's Peak, Horde