Actually i would say the 80 hours of estimation is really underguessing it. When i started ages ago on my char i spent i think the first month in the outpost though he was both doing mineing and woodworking. By the time you mined out everything the woods in the camp should have respawned, and by the time you cut down everything the mine's resources respawned too.(Helps a lot to be able to take an ox into a mine, and to have 2 OXEN! regarding carry cap.)
Around the first 20 or so levels you are completely fine being in the Logging camp. It will just get damn tedious and boring.
It depends further if you are pure woodworker or a mixed one dabblin in other crafts, mainly in smithing due to synergy.
In the Logging camp(Wachter outpost or what its current name is), you have access to tin, copper and iron. Also beech and oak.
This means that around the DC 25 woodworking stuff you are quite easily set.
(Oak+steel, iron etc shields)
The problem comes thereafter. Your main level progression will come from yew bows. Or arrows. (Oh and with the new recipes you can now make certain quarterstaffs and clubs! I think till like 36, is how high I managed to try. Not due to lack of the skill but lack of required materials.)
Yew and white stag are quite abudant, shadow wood is so so, but you can actually use these to advance in levels.
Arrows are a whole other dimension since firstly not only you need the alchemical ingredients(which there is a huge competition out for), you also need steel, and fitting wood. So you need three different kind of places usually to visit.
This actually gets even worse when you are able to reach 45 or such DC. Since then even arrows are mostly out of the equatation.
From there on out it is mostly bows. In which case you will need at least ASH, demon or devil horns, or spines.
The first two are a dungeon based spawns, so is pure luck if you are able to aquire it.(Someone hit them or not. Not taking Perf into consideration regarding this, for various reasons.)
The third one...well that is the most tedious one since it can be aquired in only one domain, and the creatures only appear when the outside spawn is completely low. Since nobody, or barely anyone visits that domain, it will usually take 3 IC nights but at least 2, to beat the spawn down so low, that they start to appear. (To make these creatures spawn mostly takes 3 IC nights! I actually have told this to some master bowmakers when they were complaining about the lack of spines.)
Now once you done with this, you can move on to palm....well...only thing that changed is now you need to go to a third domain, to get the wood. (The spine creatures and the ash can be found in the same domain, of course there is no woodworking table there though. so stock up travel to another domain to work and back again.)
I think the current level my char reached....Is around level 39? or so(and add +6 modifier ) took me easily around 200 or more hours to reach.(of course he does not use anyones "gifted" resources)
And actually i probably was sometimes quite unlucky and sometimes quite lucky. Uncovering recipes when you need to roll at least a 19 or a 20....yet failing about 20 times in a row when you only need to roll a 9.
In comparision smithing is quite easy and a lot less tedious. You can work on multiple ingots at the same time, so smelting can go up easily. You can diverse your recipe unlock.
Weapons, armour, bracers, helmets...etc.
You need to unlock in each category a single one recipe and then you can do all of the mentioned category.
Example: You are now semidecently able to make bronze stuff. So you have say 40% chance to make a chain shirt.
You try to make a chain shirt of bronze you succeed. Now you got rid of the -5 DC malus for all bronze armour. So now you can also craft without any malus the Bronze Plates too. Which usually on the lowest skin level tier is just 5 points or 6 away from the Chain shirt. Racking in huge CP.
Getting to around the level where you can hit CP 55 or so is quite easy in smithing since the only real issue you face will be finding the appropriate skins. But even with many of the leatherworkers around, there are certain skins they do not favour, yet they still give you the same challenge rate for crafting purposes like say bodak skin.
Herbalism: In comparision i would say it is somewhere between these two. It is quite easy to get to level ~40 or so. But thereafter it gets terribly tedious since there are a lot of combinations. Herb spawn restriction. Which quite a number of folks are regularly farming. So it is actually do to all the competition why you are nearly unable to advance. (Also this is the place where sneakers and those with invis have a huge advantage, or the ones with haste/speed boost. Grab and hide or grab and run) Also since you are for a while now able to craft potions in batches, it is a lot easier than it used to be.
Leatherworking:
I would say without chitin is even worse than woodworking. Simply because the lack of resources. Dedicated leatherworkers will farm down anything that would let you advance. There are certain creatures who provide quite a challenge yet their fur does nothing extra.(Craig cats vs Dire Crag cats).
Your main issue here starts with the curing. DC 15 is easy to reach in regards to availability. However then comes the next step up. DC 25. It is the lack of creatures that is restricting. There are some common ones, but due to their availability it is first come first served...so most of the time they are farmed down the moment they appear. The others are placed in dungeons and parts that are well not that easy to overcome.
Curing is also only one part...since thereafter you need to boil....tedious and boring and cash sink. Then of course you need to make something out of these. And the DC scale starts again to show here. There is again a bit of a huge jump between the DC of certain kind of patches. Prolly is why i still did not manage to hit level 30 with this. And I have at least over a 100 hours wasted in this.
(When i started chitin was not that available! Allthough probably with chitin you can easily speed it up.)
Alchemy: I would say is quite balanced. Allthough here again on later levels the availability of monsters is what will get you held back. So it is why many places are not mentioned or shared where certain ingredients can be found.
Oh one thing regarding woodworking and smithing.
Probably, though it is just my estimation and guess, since i never managed to work with Adamantine, but weapons requiring woodworking and a metal ingot, are high enough DC to substitute the bowmaking for 45-60 DC-s. But that is just my guess based upon shadow wood and palm qs DC, and pam and steel DC. But as i was told getting Adamantine is even more tedious so not sure how much of a relief that is.