Am I crafting wrong?

[fixitman]

I'm leveling all crafts at once, but not necessarily evenly. I finally got all my crafts to 20 last week (so I could clean up my armory chest), and discovered Hasty Touch and Tricks of the Trade. I always use Careful Synth, and I use Tricks of the Trade whenever a good (orange globe) pops during the first part of my synth. Once I get to the last few steps of my synth, I use a touch for any good pops for the extra quality. I save Hasty Touch for when I have 1 or 2 steps left, but less than 14 CP. A 50% chance of increasing quality is better than 0% by finishing the synth.

From what I've seen, it looks like EXP gain is directly related to the total quality you've added before finishing a synth. If this is true, going for the highest quality on every synth will yield the best EXP overall.