I didn't buy my Cornettes; I synthesized them. You're losing money that way, but you're skilling Goldsmithing and Bonecraft up from 9-14 (if you want; mine's only gone from 9-11 so far). Skilling Goldsmithing up through 14 is a losing proposition anyway, since you're probably going to be dumping horrible Brass Scales on an NPC. And did you really want to make Bone Rings from 9-17? You already have Brass Ingots from getting GS to 9, and Bone Chips are about 144 apiece from the guild. You'd be using one Bone Chip and one Wind Crystal per Bone Ring anyway, just not the Brass Ingot...but then, you're skilling Goldsmithing, where you'd use the ingots instead. So if you look at it right, this saves you crystals.
(If you're feeling cheap and helpful, take your mid-level THF/MNK or vice-versa and help people hunt down Ghouls. Or help yourself by farming Test Answers, Bone Chips, and Rusty Daggers in the area of the Horotuto Ruins past the 3-mage gate. Of course, this requires leveling THF and MNK jobs, and completing Windurst 3-2, but if you've got it...)
I think I raised my fame from around 6 to around 8 by just sitting there and synthing Cornettes until I used up the ~2.5 stacks of Brass Ingots I had made. Windurst fame has never been a huge problem for me, since I've found many fun quests to do there. Bastok just doesn't seem to have nearly as many quests that jump out at you, and as for San d'Oria...well, let's just say that if you walk inside the city for the first time with a nearly full inventory, don't talk to any of the NPCs. They'll probably start you on a quest that dumps at least one and as many as 15 items on you. Still, my San d'Oria fame is higher than Bastok (6 and 4 respectively, and somehow I have hero fame in Jeuno; I guess finishing all your RSE and Gobbiebags will help with that).
Is this a crazy, roundabout, specific way to raise Windurst fame? Yes, yes it is. But I think it's also pretty good.
Edited, Thu Oct 14 13:19:27 2004 by abracadada