Question about two gathering cross class skills

-the level 50 leatherworker skill, waste not II, it halves the decrease in durability of the next 8 steps. what happens if i activate this skill and within those 8 turns i dont decrease durability (e.g. observe)? does the skill still count the turn or does it only count when you decrease durability?

-lv 50 skill for armorer (or blacksmith i cant remember) that lower the recipe level to current level or something like that. how exactly does this work and how good is it?

-Regarding inner quiet, does this have a cap on how much bonus stacks? and do the touch skills have to in a row or something? i have been using bygotts blessing and lately it has not increased quality as much as i would have expected, and is including great strides.

1) One turn of your skill is essentially wasted for every non-durability-consuming action you take while under the effect of Waste Not (II).

2) It works by... lowering the difficulty of the synth, quite literally as its description states. The effect basically increases the effectiveness of your progress/quality actions for the duration (obviously, it only works for synths that are above your level, or a little below in the case of Ingenuity II).

3) No cap that I am aware of. No, the touch skills do not need to be in a row. The quality actions but be successful, however. You can plainly watch your control increase by opening the character menu while you synth.