crafting specializations questionFollow

My main toon is a leathercrafter, and as such, many moons ago, I chose Dragonscale (or whatever it's called) as his specialty.

Meanwhile, I leveled a couple (ok, a whole bunch of) alts, who each in turn took up some craft or other: alchemy, inscription, jewelcrafting, blacksmithing, engineering, tailoring, enchanting...

Now, for some reason, I leveled and leveled and leveled, and just never got around to looking into any of the specializations (except for my Blacksmith... who ended up dropping Blacksmithing for Engineering).

If I look at the items that the specializations allow me to create in leathercrafting, I find that very few are really of any use in this post-WotLK era, particularly for a level 70+ toon.

After all this time, now, I suddenly realized that I could have chosen a specialty for at least my alchemist. But I am wondering if it is really worth it, and if there are any suggestions others might make.

The reason I ask this here is that I don't really belong to a guild, nor do I ever seriously do instances nor BGs. I also never (unless forced into it) do any PvP. I basically solo, or dual-box, or occasionally play with another friend or two.

Are the specializations, for example that for Alchemy, really more useful for people who actively group and do raids, instances, and BGs? I was considering going for the transmutation spec. since getting an extra gem every once in a while might be more profitable. Am I off with that assessment?

My tailor isn't a clothy, either, and I seem to remember noticing that most of the "specialization" recipes were self-only items.

Likewise, when I was doing blacksmithing, I seem to recall that most of the specialization recipes were for items that could easily be beaten by mere quest rewards from Outlands (and now Northrend). Is that assessment accurate?



I know there's a lot of questions, and they're sort of noobish.
But so far, other than engineering and blacksmithing, all my crafts are just below, or above 400. A few are a mere handful of points from capping. Yet other than leathercrafting, none have any chosen specs.

I thank-you in advance for any suggestions.

I'd rate the alchemy specs as follows:

transmute (listed first since you don't raid/pvp)
Elixirs
Potions

Thank-you all!
This has been VERY interesting and enlightening.

Might I ask one more thing?
The same sort of comments regarding the other crafting specializations.

Leatherworking and blacksmithing have already been answered. Engineering has a few exclusive recipes if I remember correctly you can look at those to get your answer. Tailoring lets you make 2 of the speciality cloth with each transmute and again no real down side to taking it so it can be used as pure profit.