It never struck me that people were already doing these calculations for their personal use, because I handle my production buildings and their expansion as independant, self sufficient sub-groups. The only number I really care about, is how much money they make altogether, and I know that from the contract menu, once I sent out their combined production.
It would indeed be a huge time saver for people interested in these raw numbers to the point they're already doing these calculations themselves (and keeping them to themselves). But the main interest I originally saw in them was it allowed sharing and comparison with your fellow kapilanders not already doing these calculations themselves.
But after giving it a bit more thought, I think those kind of personal stats easily allow a bridge to ranking stats, and that their main interest lie there. Let me elaborate:
I'm not sure how many of the new players joining in the competition have as an objective to be #1 and pass CMB. But I think after a couple weeks, once they're familiar with the game, they become more realistic and either totally give up, either try to be the best in one specific given product branch (or maybe continue to consider passing CMB as a primary goal, but a very long long long term one when they'll pass their account to their grandchildren
).
According to the current stats system, based on fixed assets, my company is #1085... It's certainly accurate, but somehow irrelevant for people who aren't in the top 10, and I probably won't be so excited to become #1084 that I'll throw a party to celebrate. But tell me I'm the #10 textile producer and I'll be totally thrilled !
If there were a ranking per product, each rank would have more significance, and the game would be much more exciting for all the people who aren't playing since Realm1 started.
The "abandonned" branches might also benefit from it, because even if profit isn't there, at least some other kind of motivation will be: the rankings up for grabs.
Hey man, you've got negative fixed assets, but you're the #1 toothpaste producer. Respect !
