Two alts, two gathering habits, one honest comparison

So I ran two characters this past week and only now noticed how differently I treated gathering on each. One I farmed nodes constantly, stopping for every vein and herb along the way, the other I ignored it entirely and just quested through.

The gathering one ended up with a pile of mats and picked up the Gathering Speed buff along the way, which does make travel feel snappier once you have it running, though I can't tell you how long it actually lasts since I never timed it. The other alt leveled noticeably faster in the sense that it wasn't stopping every thirty seconds, but it had nothing to show for it on the crafting side when it came time to actually make something.

What I took from it, just for myself, is that the two playstyles aren't really comparable unless you're also tracking profession income, and I wasn't. Someone with an addon logging gold-per-hour on both characters could tell me in an afternoon whether the detour actually costs time or just feels like it does. I didn't log it, so take this as one guy's impression, not a verdict.

Curious if anyone else ran parallel characters like this and actually measured it instead of eyeballing it like I did.

The part about the Gathering Speed buff making travel feel snappier, that matches what I noticed too, though same as you I never sat down and timed it, so I can't tell you anything useful about how long it actually runs. I just know I stop noticing it the moment it falls off, which probably says more than any number would.

I did something similar a while back, one character who stopped for every single node and one who flew past everything, and honestly the questing one just felt lighter to play, less like I was managing a second job while leveling. But I never ran an addon or logged gold-per-hour like you're describing, so I genuinely couldn't tell you if the detours cost real time or only felt that way in the moment. That's outside what I know how to measure.

What I can say is the gathering character always had something to show a crafter friend when we grouped up later, and the quest-only one had empty bags and a vague feeling of having missed out. Not a verdict either, just an impression, same as yours. Did you keep one of them going longer to see if the mats pile actually paid off later, or did you drop the experiment after the week?