It's as unbelievable as developing any skills over the game. Just pretend you're tapping into innate, magical knowledge or something. It'd be kind of neat if unidentified items had most of their stats revealed, but identifying it would open up a final stat or two. That way, identifying items wouldn't be mandatory, but it'd be a bonus. Agree that only a select few vendors should be able to identify items, but not sure how expensive it should be. Too expensive, and loremaster is basically mandatory. Too little, and there's little point in investing in loremaster for that reason. But that's why I think loremaster should provide other bonuses so it's not just a goldsink vs timesink thing, but actually provides you combat benefits.
Another idea:
Loremaster 2 and 3 each let you learn one novice skill outside your ability investment with no AP penalty, so you could learn a witchcraft novice spell as a warrior. Loremaster 4 and 5 let you learn an adept spell outside your ability investments with no AP penalty. Stat penalties would still apply,
Another idea:
Loremaster 4 or 5: Skill bonuses on items have less or no AP penalty for not having the appropriate skill tree. Probably just reduced penalty by 2 skill levels or something, so an item that grants a spell with recommended level 3 in a tree would only have a +2 AP cost to cast.
