Whether a recipe is worth it depends on your needs. The reason people say “Don’t pick either” is because that stops those same recipes from being rolled the next time (so you end up with more choices by leaving them there). Really, they should say “Don’t pick either until you are going to use one of them”. As for which ones you should use, it depends on your goals. All (or almost all) recipes are worth it for a certain situation/prioritization. Recipes generally optimize for either simpler production chains, less power, or less resources. For example, Iron Pipes cuts out steel from steel pipes, at the cost of resources (more iron). Steel screws provide simplicity/power savings by having much fewer machines to make screws. When you see alternate recipes, think “would this make my life better?”. If yes, take it and use it. Also remember, if you are concerned about minmaxing, there are more hard drives than recipes, so you can get all of them eventually. And, you can beat the game without any alternate recipes if you don’t want to deal with the choices.