Ok, I'm going to take a stab at the whole dissociation thing, once again, just to see if I, like Lost Soul, have made some headway into understanding the underlying issues. I'm honestly not trying to be a prat here, so, if I rub someone the wrong way, presume that I'm just a bit abrasive, rather than actively trying to be a jerk.
PC Bob has the skill of metalworking. Could be a 3e style skill, could be a NWP, whatever. Doesn't matter. (Can't really be a 4e skill because, unfortunately, 4e doesn't include these kinds of skills - a mistake that I think has been a real sticking point for the "tactical minis game" crowd.) Now, Bob goes out and kills a boat load of goblins. Lots of goblins. He gains a few levels. He gets better at metalworking, despite not actively doing any metalworking in game during that time. Not only that, but, if he didn't kill any goblins, but, rather spent ten years doing nothing but working metal, he actually wouldn't get any better at metalworking.
AFAIK, this would be dissociated by the way I understand the definition. There is no correlation between PC and Player actions. The in-game reality does not reflect the choices made out of game.
Yep, pretty much fits my definition for disassociation.
Yet, this has always been more or less acceptable. Certainly by the rules of the game, it's perfectly fine. Other games have actually made a point of not letting you do this. And, I've seen more than a few house rules that would force you to spend character resources on things you've actually done in game, in order to make the rules associated.
Am I understanding and applying the definition correctly?
All disassociated mechanics are acceptable by the rules of the game pretty much by definition. Since they are the rules of the game!
Pretty much good application. Originally, levels didn't have this issue because there were few ties between non-adventuring mechanics and character level.
That changed under 2e with NWP, became very apparent under 3e and tapered off under 4e (since some non-adventuring abilities stopped existing).
This ends up as a joke at tables I've been at --
"Quick, we need to find some orcs!"
"Why?"
"I want to make a nice wedding present for the duke's son, but I need to get my Craft:Gold skill up 3 points first!"
Or
"No! don't try to follow that trail!"
"Why not?"
"Because we're 100 xp short of leveling and I'll be much better at it if we find a random encounter first!"
Or
"Jeez, I wonder how many critters she had to kill to become such a good dancer!"