alternate skill rank progression

Here's what bothers me with the core rules: A multi-class wizard/rogue who is level 1 in both classes is way better if she were a rogue first than if she were a wizard. This is because of the starting ranks being 4 X the class amount. I suppose this is supposed to represent a childhood of learning skills in that class, but that is inconsistent.

No other classes abilities are stronger from a childhood of preparation, so why should skills be? Does a fighter who starts off at leve1 1 know some stuff that a character who just picked up a level in fighter doesn't know? NO!

Here's the solution: Consider level 0 characters. All level 0 characters get:
3 X (4 + Int Bonus) skill points
to allot amongst their class skills and cross-class skills as determined by their class. Then they get level 1 points from their class just like they just leveled up in the class (they can allocate this points all at once of course).

This weakens classes that are used to starting out with lots of skills, so to compensate I would advocate increasing the class amounts for those classes:
Rogue: 10
Ranger:7
Bard: 7

Here's an example. Jimmy is a bright little rogue with a +2 intelligence bonus. He would normally get 4 X (8 + 2) = 40 skill points at first level. Under this house rule, he would instead get 3 X (4 + 2) + (10 + 2) = 30.

Starting rogues would be weakened. But by level 6, they'd be the same power as they would be under core rules. Any beyond that, they'd start to surpass core rule rogues. So while it shifts rogue power slightly to the higher levels, the overall usefulness of the class is not impacted.

More importantly, DMs would no longer have to figure out what to do with players who start their wizards and fighters off as rogues in order to gobble down the skill points.

What say ye? Questions, concerns?

Well as you say it actually makes skill-monkey classes more powerful in the long run while weakening them up front. But low levels are where skill monkeys shine, IMO.

One way I've seen of addressing this, that I think works very well, is to give every character double skill points for their first three levels instead of quadruple at 1st. This is something of a compromise between the RAW and your proposal, but it is a less drastic change.

This way, if somebody takes rogue for their first three levels they get the full benefit, but if they just level-dip early in their career it's less drastic.

A decent discussion of people's general opinions of this issue can be found here: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=97685

The doubling on the first three levels is an interesting idea. Reanjr, thanks for linking me to the older thread, there were some interesting ideas there. Several advocated the doubling idea, so I'll address my concerns with that first.

Firstly, it weakens level 1 even more than my proposal does, and level 1 is by far the most played character level (thus is game balance important there). Secondly, it only moderates the problem, not alleviates it. You'd still, theoretically, have greater incentive to take levels in skill-heavy schools during the first 3 levels (instead of just the 1st as before) rather than what would otherwise be most appealing. And finally, if one multiclasses into a skill-heavy class at a later level (4th or above), they still partake of a smaller percentage of that class's power than they would if they multi-classed into another class.

Ilium mentioned that low levels is where skill monkeys can shine. Well maybe if the balanced was shifted a bit toward the higher levels as I've proposed, they could begin to hang with the big dawgs.

There were three other considerations for starting at first level mentioned that I hadn't thought of: max hit points at first level, starting spell books, and feats with BAB prereqs. Good points all, but not nearly as game-impacting as the skill point issue in my opinion.

One thing seeing that other thread definitely convinced me of is that this is a major flaw with D&D. There are clearly solutions and work-arounds, but ideally such things wouldn't be necessary. I wonder if they'll change it in 4.0.