I will be starting a new game in a few months, and find that I am very dissatisfied with the D&D 5e skill system, and would like something more comprehensive, but not terribly more complex. I could just import the system from 3.0 into 5e, however I can well imagine that this is a topic that has been addressed here before, and thought that someone might be able to point me in the direction of some good ideas or information, at least I hope as much.
before i could even begin, i would need to know more about what you want and what you do not like? I mean you could be unhappy because there are too many skills or way too few. you could be unhappy with proficiency vs tools or fixed ability score to skills or not advancing skill ranks or number of skills as you level, or that they advance too much and make tasks too easy when combined with class features and options.
So i would ask the following:
Can you name two things that the 5e skills system *currently does*
that you like and want to keep?
Can you name two things that the 5e skills system *currently does*
that you dont like and want to scrap?
Can you name two things that the 5e skills system *currently does not do*
that you like and want to add to it?
Can you name two things that the 5e skills *currently does not do*
that you don't like and want to make sure doesn't get added by your new changes?
those four questions create a set of boundaries in which we can evaluate a set of changes and basically get an idea as to how well they hit your mark.
it will also help to get an idea as to what you see as "more" but "not too" complex once we have advantages of each.
"If you don't know where you want to go, you will likely wind up somewhere else."
Edit to add -
have you looked at XGtE and its more advanced tools proficiencies? Is that more what you want or the wrong way or neither?
Have you looked at the DMG options for changing the skills and traits systems? I find those options and even their variants to have a lot of potential. I personally use some of their auto-success rules from DMG and am strongly considering the implementation of some of the "lighter" proficiency schemes based on backgrounds or ability scores.
Do you use any support tools you want to keep - such as DDB etc - in your game where changes that can still "fit within that" would be more appealing than ones which drive you away from that tool? For example, IRL, in our last game, we used the DMG proficiency dice variant and it did what we liked a bit better than the proficiency value does, but when we went to full-on DDB for the current campaign it was better overall to drop the proficiency die system since DDB does not currently support that option.