Feels like I am missing something

[Roth_Trailfinder]

It occurs to me that 700 GP may, under some circumstances, provide a bigger yield.

Consider the Volcanic Rock Salt. You get 5 per swing naturally. King's Yield bumps that to 6 at a cost of 400 GP. KY2 bumps that to 7 at a cost of 500 GP.

By the time you have 700 GP you are 100/15 for gathering/HQ, so you do not need to worry about increasing your gathering chances.

Toil (or a swing to reveal and then Solid Reason) costs 300 GP and let's you take 6 gathering swings at the node. 6x6 is 36, whereas the old standby is 5x7, or 35. So with 700 GP you can increase your take from nodes that naturally provide 5.

Sadly, this does not work out for nodes that naturally provide 3. 5x5 is 25, but 6x4 is only 24. Still, if you are aiming at 700 GP, and you do need to hit up that (or those? Can only think of just this one) ARR node that provides a base of 5 items per swing, you can get more for your troubles this way.