I can understand why you did it, and your points are fair, but from a roleplaying experience I have to say that it all feels very weird. To go from never having cast a fire spell, to suddenly being able to wield massive fire abilities at later levels by investing a single point in the pyrotechnic skill (even if only limited to 3 of them) feels very unnatural. Perhaps I simply favor a class-like system, but there isn't any notion of training towards something anymore. You just go and buy some abilities off the shelf and there you go. *shrug* I guess I would like to see the skill points do a little more than increase your capacity, but that seems to go in the opposite direction of your vision.
I will say that I am disappointed in the additional nerfs to the Way of the Ranger skills, unless I simply haven't found them yet. No more smokescreen escape, or whatever it was called, and no more multi-shot ability.
*edit* - Just caught ForkTong's post above after I was done typing this and see his point about attribute requirements. That does put a little more qualification on the lack of roleplaying your progression. I still liked the old system better, I think.
