Looter profs are definately usefull, sideskills are usefull for crossskilling and being able to use whichever weapontype mindark elevates next right from the start and not after 20 other people already have it.
Besides im a space player, at this point i still have spent about twice as much time and effort skilling in space as i have spent skilling planetside, it just turned out to be so unbalanced towards planet side hunting that once i was in my 70ties i had to go planetside to skill faster then i could possibly in space just by pushing sideskills.
Why did i try to skill in space hunting you may ask when gunner profs not actually make a difference on gun turrets anymore - its the sideskills again that contribute to the captain profession.
The captain profession is what enables me to dodge warp mines much more efficienctly and reliably then other players - even with a warp drive 1 against and warp mine 4 - the highest lvl warp mine however goes to lvl100 so i still need higher lvl drives for that or captain lvl 100+ which is one of my longterm goals behind most of my skilling.
Why bother you may ask, why all the effort if space is fucked and mindark doesnt ggive it any attention - all i can say is im in for the long run and a universe gotta have space there is just no way around it, with ue5 on the horizon there might come a total overhaul of space and may mindark will honor past promises made in regards to cargo missions which where to be access by highest lvl captain first.
However it may be i have played the game long enough to know that many things can change - but one thing doesnt: high skills are never bad and i might find opportunities in more then one area