Scripting a whole bunch of actions I am using the stock / vanilla Android on Galaxy Nexus. What I want to do is setup an advanced "profile" kind of tool which does a series of steps one after another depending on what I ask - for instance - 

Office cube - Bluetooth off, GPS off, WiFi on, silent mode, kill Good For Enterprise app, start Skype

Car - Bluetooth on, GPS on, Wifi off, loud mode, start Good for Enterprise app

Home - Bluetooth off, GPS off, Wifi on, loud mode, start Skype

The eventual idea is to do this with NFC tags but before that, I want like a "script" that goes about doing this one by one. I guess I have been spoiled by Bash scripts on the terminal? 

any suggestions on how I can start going about this? 

Other notes - I do have Llama installed and it is great, but I want more control. Also, I am not keen on rooting my phone. 

(Note: I am not allowed to create a tag named "scripting" because it doesn't exist and I am new !)
Tasker is your best bet for this kind of thing. It will allow you to setup powerful profiles for the kinds of tasks that you are wanting and will allow you to run scripts as well. It should be noted that a change that came with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) restricted the ability to manipulate the GPS settings without Root, so Root would be required if you want that functionality.  You can try Tasker free for a week (Official site, Play Store).