My Current process is something like this...
 
Every time I am going to edit a project I..

1. Save As...
   1. Create a folder
   2. Name it the same as the project and then a number (i.e Project Name 1, 2 etc)
   3. Save the cwp file into the folder and use the same name (i.e Project Name 2).  This way a new audio folder is built for the new project
   4. As I finish any soft synths I follow the same process as above, and freeze or bounce to audio and then delete the soft synth.

I continue this until all tracks are audio and this is what I Master with.  This way I can go back and work on the soft synth as needed and copy the audio file forward.  I thought maybe by doing this I would keep the files as small as possible and keep out all possibilities of noise...artifacts that may be introduced.
I was hoping this would contribute to cleaner and purer audio files.
 
Are these steps unnecessary?
 
tia
meh

All those steps don't seem necessary to me... I never get noise or artifacts with softsynths and I don't expect cleaner and purer audio files... The files certainly won't get smaller because obviously a softsynth tracks takes up very little space while a freezed one results in a big audio file...!
 
I seldom freeze a synth and I never ever bounce one. I ONLY freeze a synth in two situations:
 
1. when the synth has a setting that randomly changes over time or if it has random effects that are different every time: in some cases I don't like certain sounds or effects to be different everytime so in that case I freeze the synth (sometimes two times or three times until I like the placement of the random changes or effects) so I know when certain effects or sounds are there and they won't surprise me after exporting the track.
 
2. I have a softsynth that sometimes skips notes during export so in that case I also freeze it to make sure every note is there.
 
But other then that I never freeze synths: I never get into trouble due to having to many synths loaded so I feel no need to do so to save recourses. As I said this only results in a lot of Mb's of wavs and it's harder to quickly change something.

meh
Save As...
Create a folder
Name it the same as the project and then a number (i.e Project Name 1, 2 etc)
Save the cwp file into the folder and use the same name (i.e Project Name 2). This way a new audio folder is built for the new project
As I finish any soft synths I follow the same process as above, and freeze or bounce to audio and then delete the soft synth.

For me it's similar but slightly different. I retain the midi & softsynths for the instruments that I want to continue tweaking (especially drums), but bounce any others that I consider to be "finished". Before I bounce a softsynth, I "Save As..." the project under a name like <projectname>_piano, but keep it in the same folder as the main project (allowing it to share the same Audio folder). I export the audio, then go back into the main project, delete the softsynth and associated tracks, then import the bounced audio. This means that if necessary I can easily go back to the midi if I decide to modify it later, but otherwise can just ignore it.
 
As Scook said, there's no correct way. It's just personal preference.

I like to work with audio tracks in the mix down.
 
So, I will bounce the synths to audio at some point after I have that track sounding like I want for the song.
 
If you are concerned that you might wish to go back and work on a certain synth track simply archive and hide that track.
 
Archiving shuts off the synth so it doesn't affect the processing. Then, hide the track freeing up desktop real estate in the views. A simple click to unhide and then unarchive if you ever need to work on it again. Synths and midi tracks are very small so there is not a big issue with storing them in an archived and hidden condition.
 
This is simply one more way to do things.