Adventure paths are obviously mainly for running adventure path campaigns, but I know they have other flavor and crunch information in them and am wondering if you think they are worth picking up/looking into for that information, either in general or any of the specific adventure paths in particular. What kind of tastes would the extra information be most suited to?
It's obviously a tremendously subjective thing, but I think they are invaluable. (I'd drop the AP subscription last if there could be only one).
The extra information includes regular in-depth discussions of specific deities (the main 20 have been done now, but they're going to continue with some of the more esoteric/obscure deities - something I think is likely to be more valuable since those kinds of articles on the 'also rans' could easily be cut from a god-specific book, likely to focus more on the 'main players').
There's also a significant amount of campaign setting material (my main interest) from city gazetteers to racial/cultural snippets specific to golarion to historical information about the world.
Those who like monsters always cite the inclusion of five to ten monsters every month as a big plus. Similarly there's a regular dose of fiction set in Golarion for those who like that kind of thing.
Finally, there's a not insignificant amount of rules material (rules on posession being one of my favorites).
All-in-all, the AP 'additional information' is a grab bag of bits and pieces, tied together thematically to suit the current AP story. I guess if one was only a player it might not be worth it, but for a DM running a game in Golarion (even one running exclusively homebrewed adventures) I personally think the 'extra stuff' is just as valuable as the adventure itself.
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Also the wiki has an index of articles page that will tell you about what the articles in the back section of the APs, sorted by type of article
I would think that even if your not using the adventure path per se, you could still use the maps and encounters in a home game. For example if you don't have time to build a dungeon or city from scratch you could pull one from an adventure path. For a dungeon you'd probably want to make sure it's for a leve apropriat for the PCs of course.
I've seen a lot of good dungeons in the APs. For the city info, they often have broad layouts with interesting sites noted in detail that would take me quite a long time if I were to try and make that all from scratch.