Sounds like you’re on the right track, digging into plant hormones—it's a deep rabbit hole, but super useful if applied right. In veg, most growers stick to auxins like IBA or NAA for cloning (typically 500–2000 ppm in gels), and some use cytokinins in low doses (1–10 ppm foliar) to promote bushier growth or more lateral branching. If you're looking to stretch tight plants or help stubborn seeds, a bit of GA3 (10–50 ppm) can do the trick—but it’s easy to overdo.
For flowering, ethephon is used by some to promote female flowers or help speed up ripening, usually around 150–500 ppm. Cytokinins can be used in flower, too, but they need to be low-dose or you risk getting leafy buds. ABA is more niche, but some advanced growers experiment with it near harvest to signal the plant to finish strong and boost trichome production.
It all comes down to that auxin-to-cytokinin ratio—higher auxin leans toward root growth, higher cytokinin toward shoots and branching. Just start low and dial it in slowly if you're experimenting. Most hobbyists don’t go this deep, but for those chasing dialed-in results, hormones can be a game changer.