Interesting thoughts.
I'm one of the people who considers those skills a waste, actually. They occupy spaces which are better suited for skills which help you survive. I would only consider using those if you know where all the extra skill points in Broken Valley are. Yes, you can respec, but that's 5000 gold which is better spent increasing the survival of the runners so they spend more time harvesting and less time draining your gold to be healed.
One or two points into Encumbrance might help by letting you hold more things... but those detract from your ability to be effective in combat, and more efficient packing can compensate for that. That's the POINT of this guide: I'm telling you the formulas in a different way so that decisions on what to keep and discard are easier. If you want to use level 4 or 6 enchantments, no point clogging your inventory with Iron Ore (used only on rank 1 and 2 enchantments). If you aren't interested in using the Retribution Aura in your armor or jewelry, don't hold on to Spinel. If you're not concerned with making Dexterity potions, don't fill up on Fatfern.
Master Herbalist can't even be used until level 15, and by that time you're so close to obtaining the Battle Tower and infinite plants that it doesn't matter much. You need three points to reduce 3x <Ingredient> to 2x <Ingredient>, four points to reduce 4x to 2x, five points to reduce 5x to 1x. Only the highest level formulas are noticeably affected by this, and you have the Battle Tower already by the time those start showing up.
Points into Wisdom have nothing to do with Alchemy or Enchanting, so advice on that one way or another has no place in this guide.
