Feels like I am missing something

[TechnoTechie]

600 GP is the minimum standard for end game. 650 GP can give an edge if you can achieve it (with overmelds and with food).

Never use Toil ever again. Toil is bad bad bad. It has been bad since old times of ARR. Even without the collectable game in HW, Toil has always been bad for almost any unspoiled gathering activity. All you need is one hit on the slot and 300 GP is saved. The only situation when Toil is useful is if the item changes slot number every time.

In my opinion, you should only be using skills like toil when you want to mass unlock all the items from the node, the very first time. From then on, after its been discovered, you should be saving the 300gp to heal the node with ageless words/Solid Reason if you don't need the GP for the extra appraisal. After you get Single mind you don't need to use ageless/Solid, but that's what it's good for before 57 for collectables, but I guess that early when you're not using instinctual for the rng boost, it works the same! xD

Toil has only really been good for the pioneers (see what I did there?) of the unspoiled gathering world, who are the first to discover exactly what slot items are on. It's good for that at least, but after that it quickly loses it's value. The only time you'd use it now is for items that have randomized slots (like dark matter clusters)

Yup, only perception matters for collectability. So if you want to increase it right now, you'd need to meld your gear for it (unless you've already done that). It seems to work in steps, as in it doesn't scale for every point of percetion you get, but rather it increases at certain "levels" of the stat.

unbuffed methodical appraisal increases by 2 (and sometimes by 1, but only near the floor or cap) points for every 5 points of perception beyond the floor, until the cap. See this thread for more details.