Several Crafting questions

[Roth_Trailfinder]

1 - If you intend to make your own 1 star or 2 star items, then it would be a big money saver to get botany and mining to 50.
3 - My own crafts are all 40, with Leatherworker 50 and I'm working Carpentry now, for Byregot's. With just the stuff I have made myself, including (and requiring!) food, I can craft the 1 star stuff, though HQ requires luck. My next two will be GSM and WVR, specifically for gear.
4 - Get Culinary to 37 for Steady Hand 2. After that, examine your own needs - Byregot's, gear, melding, what do you need to 50 next?
5 - From 1 through 40, with the possible exceptions of Alchemy and Culinary (because they require such a wide variety of stuff) I recommend using the Crafting Log to level. Make one of each item, HQ what you are going to use, try to HQ everything else, and dump what you will not use on the market. Stop with the 40 durability base material crap - make what you need of those, but there is no reason to make 600 Oak Lumbers when you only need 50.

As for a 40 Durability rotation, that really depends upon your CP. What I do is :
Inner Quiet
Steady Hand 2
Waste Not
Hasty Touch
Hasty Touch
Hasty Touch
Hasty Touch
If it takes more than one Synthesis, Careful Synthesis. If it only takes the one, Hasty Touch.
Manipulation
Steady Hand 2
Waste Not
Hasty Touch
Hasty Touch
Hasty Touch
Hasty Touch
Best Touch I've got CP for
Careful Synthesis

I will NOT use Tricks of the trade while I've got Steady Hand 2 going. That basically leaves Tricks for right after Inner Quiet, and then after the fourth Hasty Touch to right before the second Steady Hand 2, and then after that last Hasty Touch. I've got enough CP at 40 that I can use a Basic Touch at the end if I get no opportune Tricks of the Trade uses.

That routine generally gets me more Quality than the Inner Quiet, Great Strides, Steady Hand (2), Advanced Touch, Great strides, Advanced Touch, Great Strides, Advanced Touch, Synthesis routine.