Skills and Professions

For a long while, it has been mysterious how your skills affected your "professional standing". However, since December 18, 2006 with the Version Update (VU) 8.8, we have been given a new screen that shows all the professions of your avatar. Since then, the old thread "How to calculate pro standing" has been supplemented with the new "Skill Impact on Professions" thread, both on EntropiaForum (EF). The data in there comes mainly from people chipping in or out skills and taking note on their profession levels before and after.
I have been following a slightly different approach, as I have never, and probably will never chip skills. I follow the profession level using (L) blueprints on Carpentry and lately Tailoring. This is for two reasons, really: firstly, the skills involved are not commonly chipped and traded and thus little information is known (see e.g. a strange thread on Machinery). Secondly, I like to craft a little here and there and record my returns in order to come to a conclusion whether Engineering really affects the returns you get on crafting. (to be continued after I get this job done my boss just gave me)