Blacksmithing question
 

Does anyone know if blacksmithing higher level requirement stuff gives more chance to skill up as opposed to crafting stuff with a trivial closer to your blacksmithing skill level?

It's not supposed to matter: on live if you had a 50 in Blacksmithing then you had exactly the same chance of a skill-up on a recipe with a 51 trivial as you had for a 251. This was an established fact on eqtraders.com, where (even back in classic times) tradeskillers were hardcore enough to test this sort of thing and report their findings.

However (based on forum reports; I haven't tested this myself) P99 is not classic in this regard. Evidently we give an increased chance of skill-up on success, which gives you a much higher chance of a skill-up on the 51 trivial than on the 251 trivial, since you're way more likely to succeed on the 51.