This I like.
Heck, I feel that skills like "armor specialist", "single-handed", "bow", etc should slow down durability loss - the idea being that as your skill with these items increases, you're learning to use them properly in a way that causes less damage from wear.
EDIT: And no, weapon abilities are still pretty crappy in the beta - they just give another 3 or so points of damage. Especially at higher ability levels, they're a huge waste of points.
(I haven't checked in the beta to see if they're better, I was going to wait until Madora got a few levels and a big weapon to see what the difference is.)
