"Optimized" characters or parties?

[Bouldering Jove]

Er, no. Because, you see, making pastry impacts on the simulated world, and is non-random. None of the character features that you can select freely are like that, even if they ought to be (height and weight, say, are mechanically both largely irrelevant and random despite what reality might suggest).

"The simulated world" doesn't exist unless you conflate mechanics and flavor (which, as I explained before, is misguided). There's a sort of abstract world that's governed by explicit and strictly codified rules, and there's the flavorful realm where players actually visualize their characters and actions. There are all kinds of details in the latter realm that have no bearing on the former, such as the colors of objects. Making a pastry without mechanical properties doesn't have any more mechanical impact than choosing to have blue eyes or a suspicious personality. All can influence the events of the story, of course: a beggar helps the players after getting a pastry, eye color is related to mythological heritage, the character refuses to accept a job that was offered by a shady character. The story will change by the outcome, but they just don't influence anything that D&D's game mechanics actually track.

To the first, you've got your facts wrong...one silver buys a day's worth of poor meals, by PHB.

Ah yes, you're right. Which makes it only marginally less ridiculous.

And of course, the wiser laborers, and especially the ones with families, will probably be shopping at the market that gets you a pound of flour or a whole chicken for 2 coppers. If they can afford it, maybe whole half-pound loves of bread for the same price. Buying prepared meals is an extravagance for the likes of them.

It doesn't say in the SRD that they're pre-prepared meals, just the cost of meals for a day. Of course, the same SRD doesn't require any specific amount of food to avoid starvation effects in the environment section.

For the second, maybe they can cripple their special talent badly enough so as not to absolutely force a non-zero profession(cook/baker) rank. Even so they're trying to extract a mechanical ability for their character at no cost whatsoever. Is it intended for 'crunchy' applications? Probably not. To me, there's no such thing as a truly non-crunchy application. At least one skill rank and a decent modifier, that's all I ask.

How are they trying to extract a mechanical ability for their character? It's purely flavor. There IS no mechanical ability. If they want a mechanical ability that isn't pure fluff, they have to invest ranks in Craft (whatever). The only way it can possibly have any crunchy application is if you're confusing a "crunchy" application to mean any way whatsoever of influencing the game being played.

There's an implicit assertion here that player-created flavor beyond personality isn't allowed to influence the game in any fashion, or at least that every flavor decision must be represented by mechanics. I think that it's a fallacy and a very restrictive way to play the game.