I suppose we just have different views on the matter. I was more thinking Fallout 3/NV perks, many of which affect combat with damage or accuracy or skill bonuses. They had about the same ratio of combat to RP benefits as D:OS did. There's little common theme among F3 perks either. I thought many D:OS talents were more interesting than F3 perks overall, though F3 had a lot more perks than D:OS had talents.
Feats in NWN were also one of the main ways many classes gained abilities, particularly warriors, where in D:OS, all classes learn abilities through skill books. So feats were more important in that regard than talents for defining classes. Even the name "feat" implies various active maneuvers, magical or physical, whereas "talents" more broadly suggests a passive trait. Of course, that's getting nitty gritty on semantics, but it's what I read into the terms.
You can't compare the feats in F3 with D:OS, they are completely different genres, while the first and second Fallout and D:OS aren't :p Besides, F3 is a lot more mainstream-ized and has more in common with TES past Morrowind than with turn-based RPGs. I do see your point, though, but you have to take into account balancing. Like I've mentioned, it's much easier to balance the mobs without having to worry about +damage talents. I.e. They are forced to balance the mobs around NOT having the talents, because they are a choice. Which leaves the characters who DO have them completely overpowered compared to the mobs. That runs contrary to the tactical nature of most TB RPGs. The +damage talents in F1 and 2 made otherwise unusable damage types viable. This could translate into D:OS like this: "You can use ranger abilities with thrown weapons" or "Your unarmed attacks now deal comparable damage to everything else". Without being thought-out and having a coherent theme you run into constant balancing problems because you simply can't balance for every single idea that you think up and throw in there. Balance is important to me, because I like challenge in the games I play (that's one of the main reasons I play games) and RPGs are very conducive to challenge (even if that's on the hardest difficulty, but having difficulty options is nice in general) For me, being overpowered is not fun or engaging, if I wanted that I can just use a cheat engine. I don't think I'm alone in my gaming habits :p Besides, having more RP talents opens the world that much more.
