What the author fails to state is that all of these decisions depend on the prices for the various commodities involved on your server.

The author more or less accurately tells you all the factors involved (what the ore prospects into and a general indication of relevant factors for whether those products will be more valuable than the ore itself, or than ore smelted into bars). However, it is well worth checking the *actual* values in your local market to make these decisions. Whether it makes sense to prospect adamantite ore, for example, just depends on the price the products: green and blue quality gems and the powder. (By the way, the powder is only used for mercurial adamantite and is usually more valuable as vendor trash than anything else; only a very small volume of it will actually sell on the AH. When I can't use it myself--such as to make necklaces to DE when shard prices are high--I've found vendoring it to be the best investment.) Some months ago, on my server ore went for between 18-25g but was worth, on average, over 35g prospected. Now (since 2.4) it sell for 25-35g per stack and is only worth about 15g prospected (b/c blue gems have gone down in value so precipitously). Whereas I used to prospect ore to get the cheapest blue-quality gems possible, now it makes more sense to buy them directly on the AH. If I were a miner, it would make more sense to sell my ore (or perhaps smelt it) and buy gems.

The point is, these decisions need to be made based on prices on your server. The author provides a valuable start, but the *prices* matter, not just a general account of what is used by what other professions. I guess telling people to go make a spreadsheet would be a boring article, but it would be more accurate.

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