[Dragar]

Old age considerations and maintaining provs at >5k while blood hunting aside, I think growth scales are really a subjective trade-off between current and future gain. Can you grow fast enough from the extra points to justify a death scale? Are you confident of surviving long enough for growth 3 to pay off? It's just personal preference

Personally I like taking growth one quite often, for the old age benefit and because I just hate to see my income base declining - but I know that's a psychological comfort rather than a real advantage, as I am paying for it in design points and could probably be further ahead with another scale in order, luck or production.

Certainly one thing I've learnt is that if you take death 3 you'd better be primed to expand quickly, or you will fall behind.