With the goals that the current attribute bonuses have in mind, the attributes should really be something you set at the start(S.P.E.C.I.A.L. in Fallout 1/2, or how D&D does it), and only scarcely improve throughout the game.
It's a perfectly viable approach with the new bonuses for skills, which affect all sources of their effects.
In fact, it would be a perfectly good approach to abandon the D:OS distinction between 'skill schools', and have things like "Recovery" instead of Hydrosophist or "Vampirism" instead of Necromancy, and then just give skills individual requirements based on what they actually do.
I agree its a better system which you are proposing and the game would be more balanced with it.
