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Profession (Judge) and Profession (Lawyer) have seen a fair amount of use on current characters of mine.
Profession (Beekeeper) somehow managed to get used in an old campaign where Giant Bees ended up showing up once. I don't think anyone saw the Masterwork Bee Smoker that I'd been toting around since the campaign's start coming.
In campaigns I've run Profession (Librarian) has seen use that I can remember. There have probably been others along the line at some point.
absolutely never used in our game. No one ever takes the profession skill except to qualify for a prestige class.
One of my players gave her character Profession: Courtesan and has her run a temple of Calistria with her Cohort and followers.
Go figure. ^^
Also, I go by the old "Wilderness Lore/Survival = Profession: Outdoorsman" - Profession can be used in place of a number of quite different skills without sacrificing massive amounts of skill ranks or character concept.
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One of my players gave her character Profession: Courtesan and has her run a temple of Calistria with her Cohort and followers.
Go figure. ^^
Almost the same here, only it is a FR group, so the godess involved is Sharess. Since the player came up with some pretty neat ideas of what to do with her festhall (and where to build a second one), her cleric is by far the richest character in the party.
Lawspeaker, Chef, Scribe, Illuminator, Accountant (don't ask...), Herbalist, Mason
Profession: Butler.
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Profession (herbalist) seems to be the one that gets fleshed out the most, becoming a second-rate druid-friendly version of craft-alchemy, but I remember seeing Profession (porter) in the Kingdoms of Kalamar being used to make checks to lighten the encumbrance of carried gear, by packing it just so, which, from an adventuring standpoint, is actually useful (something like DC 15 or 20 to reduce weight carried by 10%, if you had the right packs and straps and whatnot, or whatever).
I've seen Profession (merchant) used in place of social skills to find better prices, both in selling recovered loot and in purchasing new equipment.
And then there are the inevitable Profession checks to make cash, in Organized Play games. I'm fond of Scribe (for wizards), Guide (for rangers or druids) and Apothecary / Chirurgeon (for clerics).
I've had several characters that either have Profession (cook) or Profession (butcher), which was handier in the days when various critter parts might be useful for spell components and whatnot. Don't wanna mess up that 5000 gp Aurumvorax hide, frex...
it might be nice to pimp profession skills up a bit, maybe in an issue of Wayfinder or Kobold Quarterly.
Like giving specific uses for them or granting synergy bonus' to other skills or rather specific uses of other skills (+1 per 5 ranks for example) or other minor benefits. Along with a list of potential professions it might breathe some life in this forgotten skill.
i once had a character with profession (teacher) in an RotRL campaign. my current pbp rogue has craft (tailoring) and profession (clothier) awefully hard to find a solid black winter weight kimono that doesn't feature any prints. even in minkai. how else do you maintain a hair ribbon to last more than a decade? not to mention, she deals in selling exotic clothing as a cover up to hide the fact that she is a "ninja" (mechanically rogue)
Before conversion to Pathfinder, my current character had Profession (mortician).
My wife currently has a character with Profession: farmer in our Kingmaker game. I have another guy coming in with Profession: Herbalist. I try to make NPCs with Profession skills as well.
Things I allow would be someone with Profession: Herbalist might be able to make a check with that skill in place of Knowledge: nature when dealing with plants. An alchemist with Profession: farmer might be able to begin cultivating her own materials, and thus cut down even more on the cost to produce alchemical items; same could be done with herbalist.
Siege Engine rules require people with Profession: siege engineer to man catapults.
So I guess, I allow Profession checks to act like Knowledge checks in more narrow fields than Knowledge checks. I allow them to potentially reduce the cost of material components.
Another example would be someone with Profession: miner could probably spot metal and gem deposits in a cave, but wouldn't know what that brown mold or giant, transparent jelly thing is.
My wife's character in Council of Thieves has been using Profession (fortune teller) and having fun with her Harrow deck.