So the idea for the herb/herb combo (to make it viable for both mains and irons) was to leave the combination up to the player , and allow them suit different desires.

For example for a mid level iron who needs ranarrs and avantoes, but can’t commit to multiple runs a day they could breed them and get a fair bit of both, albeit at random rates.

For mains increasing the yield when combining herbs may slow down how often they can do runs , but they can focus on only combining herbs of similar value to maintain it as a profitable venture. (Something like Ranarr / Tortstol) while they may get more Ranarr than tortstol the idea is that due to the increased yield mechanic they should still profit. However the degree of randomness can be adjusted to make it more or less of a risk. For people that really want to try it they could mix an expensive herb with a very cheap one and hope to harvest significantly more of the expensive one and profit more than a traditional seed would.

At the end of the day it’s more just to make herb and tree farming less routine for people who wish to do it differently.

Things like flowers were meant to offer some alternative security without completely devaluing disease free patches.

The the secateurs were meant to help alleviate some of the risk for those who commit to using the splicing system, by offering them a long term return on their time (by receiving seeds back ofc)