Yes, what they said could work. If youre gathering them yourself(which i assume based on how you worded the question), then using your skills is the way to speed it up. Personally, i would always look for one of three specific node bonuses before starting - often respawning nodes repeatedly until i got one of them. I would look for either the +30% hq node, the yield+ node, or the attempts+2 node(some of those traits may not appear until after level 53). Failing any of those, id use the attempts+1. More swings means more chances for the percentages to work for you. The key skills i focused on were Unearth 2, Solid Reason, and Deep Vigor. Unearth is self explanatory. But if i had a node i knew was going to get to the Deep Vigor guaranteed hq status, an extra swing or two from Solid Reason always felt like a decent investment of GP.

Note on respawning nodes: You dont have to empty a node to cause it to respawn. When you open your 4th node, the server will respawn the first. It calculates an exact position, if any hidden elements are there, and any bonuses at that time. If the node was never cleared, you can often see them move a little on the mini-map as this is done.