Opportunity Cost
I got a fantastic email from someone, we'll call him Dave, regarding my profession conundrum. You specifically mention farming low level dungeons for greens to DE to skill up enchanting. Its a common mis-conception but this is not "free" materials. Likewise if you mine your own ore for JC the materials there are not "free" either. If you can get cash in any other way that is faster than this then mining is NOT a money making profession, it is in fact a money LOSING profession. It is my experience that just doing dailies is better cash/time than mining/herbalism and therefore Mining is note "Excellent" at gold making, it is horrible. Quite literally the only reason to have mining is for smelting and on an alt this works just fine. If you need mats to skill up, check what they cost, figure out how long it would take you to farm them, and then figure out what your gold rate per hour doing dailies is. 99% of the time farming them is a money loser...ju...