You can do very well without charisma or bartering. If you want to get better prices you can still buy bartering items or craft charisma accessories as long as one of you is willing to change his outfit before talking to merchants. There's plenty of money available in the game.
To me figuring out crafting / blacksmithing recipes and then planning out my party's items was part of the fun. However, you can certainly manage without it, if you really want. You may, however, find it easier to get through some parts of the story with specifically crafted weapons. Random loot is what it is. Random. You cannot count on it.
To me Lucky Charm seems totally useless, given that you have plenty of loot in the game anyway.
I prefer being able to identify items and to be able to see enemy strengths and weaknesses. Again, if you're OK to pay for identify spells at the merchant's, it's your call.
I'd say if you already invest in intelligence with a character he can as well get all schools, even if you cannot get all of them to rank 5. Again, my preference.
Bodybuilding and willpower should be maxed in the late game unless you play an all time sneaky build.
Telekinesis is very useful but it seems you can buy / loot plenty of telekinesis items.
I'd take Leech with melee characters, so unless you want your wizard to become a battle mage, I'd pass.
Story-wise Pet Pal is priceless
Animals are funny and they can give you quests too.
Elemental affinity is useful if you have multiple elements and also good resistances. Saving on AP is one of the key techniques to get better in fights.
Yes, Glass Cannon does make the game too easy. But then again, so does sneaking or Leech or Zombie and lots of other capabilities. Or rather, there are simply not enough talents worth taking (there are also some seriously bad ones like 'All Skilled Up'...)
If you don't want to be scared away from fights or get charmed or cursed those traits are fairly important
(And much better than their counterparts, obviously.)
As for your attribute progression I'd take Glass Cannon with a mage. I'd max INT (at 15) asap while putting some points into CON as well. There will be ways to get a bit more than the standard progression, though.
