I found myself frustrated with the huge piles of skills
characters end up with when using the 'advanced' character
generation routines. The big thing those routines had going
for themselves were the wide variety of skills they provided.
My way around this was to create new routines that generate
characters with reasonably modest amounts of skill points,
but which make available a wider selection of skills to the
character.
My players are happy with being able to have access to some
of the strange obscure skills from the 'advanced' systems,
and I'm happy as well, in that my games aren't overpowered
with huge overbloated skill levels. This seems to be keeping
everyone happy.
- -Mike