1) The "buy skills from merchants" thing is certainly unusual. It's rare to see that model. In terms of realism, is it that much more out there than skill points from out of nowhere? Maybe not. I do see one advantage to it though: Instead of being limited by a set number of skill points available, your gold supply is the resource for buying skills - and gold is usually plentiful in these games.
It will be useful as a money sink, no doubt. It wouldn't be that much of a problem if leveling up wasn't already an underwhelming experience - skills added from leveling would help if they won't improve other aspects.
3) The word "stat point" is unclear. Do you mean Ability Point or Primary Attribute Point? Right now, you get 1 Ability Point per level from 2-5. Starting at level 6, you get 2 Ability points per level until 10 or 15, after which you get 3 Ability Points per level.
You get one Primary Attribute Point every even-numbered level, and one Talent Point every odd-numbered level.
That was my impression as I went from 1-7. It looked like the rules for what you get each level up was changing -- because it was. If there is a method to the madness it is implemented pretty poorly.
I got the impression that it does whatever it wants, sometimes giving an attribute points, sometimes not. There was one level where I didn't get a stat/attribute point at all - instead I got 1 talent, 1 ability. The only consistent one was 1 Ability point each level, which were useless since you can't put more than 1 into an ability... except for the ones that have 2 already. That makes a lot of sense, right?
2) If you meant "Primary Attribute" points, this is probably a matter of preference. I think the idea is to make each point really count so you have think about what you want to do with that point right now. If you meant "Ability" points, then I kinda agree (see below).
Stat/attribute points are very important for builds. One isn't enough for hybrid builds, especially not later in the game. One doesn't seem enough for pure builds either. Anything you do with 1 point feels like you did nothing at all.
4) They are going to get rid of the +Ability Talent points, actually.
Good.
