Professions for just fun? Or also profit?

I think professions are a fun way to make a profit, but that does depend on your budget. I actually managed to craft and fuse about 50% LUK worth of items for my Phantom before I began to fund him, and he's now currently an alchemist to fuse untradeable equips and extract drops from Monster Park, so I would say it's a decent way of making full use of all the random drops you get while playing.

And if you want fame, I suppose putting an extractor out at Ardentmill should get you some.