I use to play on Alexander server a lot. Funny thing was I played for about 3-4 years and I never got a character to 75 (the closest was 72SMN which took A LOT of time).
I spent a lot of time level most jobs to around 40 and crafting. I had cooking at 100, woodworking at 90, fishing at 70 or so, leatherworking at 60, and a few others around 50 or so (spread over several characters of course), and then just helping the LS with sky runs and other NM's (I rarely asked for anything, never asked for anything in Sky, I just liked doing all the runs).
I found a nice little exploit right when the game came to NA which allowed me to make about 10k an hour so I was funded quite nicely since then. I would just make a new character, do 11 or 12 lowbie quests in Bastok, and then get a warp scroll and sell it at the various AH's. All that took about an hour and I would easily get 10k for them. That funded my crafts for years.
And to prove I spent a shit load of time on the game, here's just one of the many little guides I made:
-edit-
I'll post the little guide I made later, the forums don't like it. It was a guide trying to find out when best to level your SMN skill and with what avatars. Keep in mind this was before anyone knew what the skill was or best way to level it, I have no idea if that has changed any now.
I did just under 3600 summons and recorded the day, moon phase, skillup, and what avatar I was using.