One of the exciting parts of Divinity: Original Sin was finding interesting ways to use obscure skills. While you had skill limits within the individual skill classes, you still had plenty of room to have less useful skills which would use occasionally.
Now we have an across the board limit with Memory. I can't say I know all the implications of this, but with 10 to start for 5 skills and 2 points in required per additional skill, it seems unlikely that you'll have a vast array of skills at your disposal anymore.
Looking at my characters from the end of the last game, I see a range from 14 to 28 non-special skills available. This would mean spending 18 to 46 points in Memory.
I'm not an expert in the balance of the game, but I know what I found fun. I enjoyed using lots of skills, and having the space to keep skills I only used occasionally. When I think of being able to use less skills, I see less fun.
Additionally, since the points I spend on Memory come from somewhere else, I'm losing abilities in other locations to get the slots I used to get from spending skill points. It's a bit of a drag, and I'll certainly be forced to spend sparingly to min/max my other powers, which means even less skill slots, which means only the biggest and best skills get the open slots.
The old system not only gave me more room for minor powers, but required me to use lower powered slots on lower power skills, so I always had some random interesting low level powers available. Now I simply can't afford to waste the slot unless I really need it.
I'm not sure why the designers decided we needed less abilities. Maybe it's a balance thing, but it doesn't feel fun.
