Okay, I don't know how it really is or is going to be. But I'd like to suggest an exponential type growth of skills so that (from perhaps a role-play/lore perspective), "the basics of something are learned easily, but it takes time and effort to master something." If there isn't a planned skill cap this alleviates the problem of everyone being a clone of everyone else. Crafters would have reason to specialize, damage dealers would have reason to specialize in a particular damage role, and so on.

To that end, I also think that higher level mobs should yeild more skill points to players that fight them or if there will be a tier system to skills and weaponary (I really hope there is something like that and that it's a lot more robust with variation than Darkfall's), then using the higher abilities and weapons would yield more skill points. That way people don't grind on low-end stuff consistently. Same with crafting/harvesting and whatever specialties that I forgot.