I think Stabbey's point is that in a game where combat is mandatory, it's somewhat expected that you'll take at least a couple purely combat talents (i.e., the game is balanced with each character taking at least a couple purely combat talents), but none of those particular combat talents are required. And ultimately, all talents and player skills tend to contribute to combat prowess in indirect ways anyway. If you're a skilled barterer and talents help you get good gear or items, even if you sacrifice a certain amount of combat skills to become a good barterer, the extra gear and items you get will at least partially make up for your smaller investment in direct combat skills or talents.
I don't see what makes +damage/+AP talents so special. They just need to be balanced correctly so they're not the obvious choice. I think Bully could drop down to 20-25% damage bonus, and Glass Cannon could drop from 100% AP bonus to 50% AP bonus. On the other hand, Anaconda with its mere 10% bonus for maces only is pretty useless. They could add stun chance or a sunder armor effect to all bludgeoning attacks and that'd more interesting. What A Rush is a pretty situational AP bonus.
