I have liked the alternative way some games solved it.
Vampire Bloodlines: Only experience (skill points) from quests, and your power grew by increasing your skills.
Guild Wars: A MMO with a rather different solution. You reached level cap (20) halfway through the first campaign. At that time you also had max weapons/armor. After that you still got levels that awarded you "skill points". Most of the power increase came from exploring all different corners of the land to find skills. Combining skills was a main theme, 8 Slots, 200ish skills and often 8 ppl in a team. Unfortunately, that system was probably the game´s grave since Guild Wars included a very good PVP system. The effort to keep all these possible combinations well balanced must have been nightmarish. No subscription, but expansions twice a year added to the complexity. For a MMO it rewarded player skill and teamwork much higher than time spent or gold/items accumulated. Might work in a crpg game.
