Whats the point of the work order quests?

[IIamaKing]

Title. They ask for a large amount of highly valuable mats in return for like next to nothing.

Today I got 40 queenfish for 1 Blood.

Yesterday I had one that was 40 herbs (~500g value) for 96g.

I turned one just to see if rep was attached(dalaran one), did not seem to be the case, so, wtf is the point of these quests.

[zoomgpally]

Dalaran doesn't have a rep, the ones in other zones do give rep.

The fish ones(some at least) are also required for an achievement

[Schizoide]

Production profession world quests reward a level 3 recipe, so they're worth doing once per character. Otherwise I agree, they aren't worth doing, particularly in the beginning of the expansion when profession mats are extremely expensive.

[mysticx]

The first time i did work order quests for engineering i got the 3-star schematics for the appropriate item, but after that i get ore for handing those items in, i haven't done fishing work orders yet, fishing is something i'll do when there's not much else left to do... :P

But the return-on-investment is pretty bad for work orders, a matter of checking how the ratio works out on a case-by-case basis, i suppose.