Well, the basic idea is, that you waste a bunch of runes to save some and get more.

lvl 3 neatness costs around 27 mind runes and 6 magic (if I recall correctly). Lvl 3 alchemy costs 3 Mind and 15 magic. For a mage, who needs to keep her magic runes intact to level up almost every skill in the magic tree to be versatile, Neatness might just do the trick for her. Since money is plentiful, buying every item you come across later in the game will not hurt at all. Then simply break it. This way get the extra crystals you would "obtain" through leveling up alchemy to suit your ever growing crystal needs.

For the price of 27 Mind and 6 magic runes you save up 3 mind and 15 magic, and you get a ton of crystals through breaking items and some more runes from breaking 4-5 lvl item that you don't need. It is a very good tradeoff... Sadly, I'm only realizing it in this game, where I already pumped up Alchemy to lvl 3. So I'm expencting to end up with a ton of crystals and a poorly built magic tree in terms of Order Magic, Magic Light, and probably summoning. If I had gone to neatness lvl 3 straight away, things would have been different.

To sum it up: Lots of money equals lots of unnecessary items. Lots of Unnecessary items + Neatness lvl 3 equals lots of crystals, that you will barely manage to spend. Lots of Unnecessary items of lvl 4-5 + Neatness lvl 3 equals even more crystals and extra runes.

In the end, it's a great trade-off for lvl 3 alchemy.

I've actually gotten runes from L4 artifacts too with Neatness 3 (so don't break those too early!) You get 3 of one type of runes from L5 and 2 of that type w/ L4. Getting runes w/ L4 is much rarer than getting it with L5 though (neither is every time.)

Thanks for the extra info, Temjin. I really needed that clarification to confirm the game experience I posted above. So it is true then, and lvl 3 neatness outweighs the usefulness of Alchemy lvl 3 big time.

I'll have to fix that poor judgment error in the next game with the mage hero :)

Sorry, you actually beat me to posting that. It was meant to reply to the guy before you, not rehash what you said.

But I'm really glad you did. I like to have a second opinion on a matter I'm researching to either corroborate my experiences, or get a different point of view. It helps a lot and it is a win-win situation :)