There used to be a Reflexes Ability that contributed to Evasion, but that was removed and now Dexterity is used instead. You can only put points into Reflexes on character creation now, and that's because it hasn't been removed yet.
If the "Rogue" is someone who is deadly with knives and untouchable due to his reflexes - the modern MMO-style - then he also won't have more than a smattering of non-combat skills (which includes things like lockpicking, stealth, and charm). In fact, he's probably less of a "rogue" and more of a knife-fighter... in effect, he's also a Warrior.
I believe that there's a big enough difference between a slow, tanky warrior and a fast, fragile warrior that
there is a niche for such an ability.
I do think that there may be a real problem where a spear-using warrior needs DEX, and so doesn't get any synergy bonuses for his warrior skills that want STR.
On top of that, the "Way of the..." skills are overlapping pretty heavily with other stats, skills, and talent functions. They're actually in the way of having interesting talents, because a lot of potential talents are already wrapped up in the "Way of the..." skills. Wouldn't Natural Armor, Vitality Boost, Cooldown Reduction, etc, be at least somewhat more interesting as talents than the current "+1 to a skill" set?
You're right that many of the bonuses from the existing "Way of the..." skills could be given as Talents. Others (like the +4 AP per turn one) are too good to be given as talents and/or only work as part of the Ability skillset.
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I have absolutely no problem at all with renaming the categories of abilities and reorganizing them. I just see that as a mere cosmetic change, because you can ALREADY mix and match abilities.
I do agree that right now the Weapon Specialization skills are worthless, because they only contribute one or two points of damage - much less than you get from simply finding a better weapon. I'm not sold on combining one-handed and two-handed into one catchall "melee weapons" category.
