I made lockpick an example in my post assuming some fantasy situation in which it actually works like it should. Even then I wouldn't dump so many points into it unless it was necessary for quest completion.
Anyway, I believe that's why they have a scale of price/level for unlearn. You can use fire missiles untill you get better spells if you want and do a cheap buy-back at low level.
Personally if I knew it was a low-damage skill I would wait for those better spells and use a sword or whatever. That's what the D2 skill system was all about. You would never dump 20 points into ice blast what you had frozen orb at level 30. The problem I think is with DnD players, i.e. 'true' roleplayers or whatever they think they are. They follow a system that's incredibly restrictive i.e. a mage must use spells all the time, not wear armour and so on and its definatley not what <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> is all about.
You have to think outside of the box.
Either buyback or restart. You have 2 choices in the game as it stands. Simple as that.
