Upping Runes Question

Hey all, I'm kind of a noob and was wondering if people often up runes to try to get to higher runes. I know low runes are a waste of time. But mid runes like Pul and up for example. If you have lots of Pul/ Um/ Mal/ Ist, upping them slowly trying to get to like Lo/ Sur/ Ber for example. Do people do that much or do they mostly use those mid runes just for trading?

No, buy higher runes with lower ones. Like you can usually get an Ist if you offer Mal+ Um

Its a lot. It looks deceptively small at first glance, but to get Ber from Pul you need about 512 Pul (*2 for Um * 2 for Mal * 2 for Ist etc - it's 2 to the power of "number of steps" when you start from Pul). You could get more than 100 Ist from 500 Pul when trading which is 3 Ber Lo at the moment. When starting to cube from Ist you would need 64 Ist to get Ber which is actually worth more than 2 Ber when trading. You need to cube 4 Lo to get Ber, but you can get Ber for 3 Lo when trading etc

It's kind of ok to cube Pul -> Um, Mal -> Ist, Gul -> Vex, Ohm -> Lo, Sur -> Ber (because you don't lose much value or you don't lose value at all). It's a huge waste of value when cubing Ist -> Gul, Lo -> Sur, Ber -> Jah, Jah -> Cham (especially this one ), Cham -> Zod

Ahh, yeah that all makes sense. Ok thanks guys