I must be strange, because I only take the dialogue perks that make sense for my character to have. My Dalish gets Arcane Knowledge but not Nobility Knowledge, for instance. I see it as a roleplaying thing. edit- ninja'ed
The schematics were kind of a disappointment since you don't get many and it was stuff I didn't really want.
I did the same thing. Only took dialogue perks that were character relevant and left the rest. At most I took 3 (Nobility, Arcane and History) for my Trevelyan mage since the Ostwick Circle allowed him to be tied to his noble family (and privileges) and he's likely to have an educated upbringing and knowledge of magic given the Circle.
The schematics were practically nothing. Was expecting some sort of high-tier unique armor/robes or something, possibly race-unique in the case of the non-human races.
I generally like:
Forces- the one that adds +10% defense to all party members in everything
Secrets- Forward Scouts- saves the aggravation of having to look up quarry/logging stand locations
Connections- anything that gives access to high quality materials, saves the aggravation of farming and lets you craft really good weapons and armor faster