Not sure of the OP's hopes or attitudes toward the final game design. But, IMO, any universal system would need to take into account the variety of scales and whatnot that any physical-simulationist character traits would have....and that leads you to Champions or any number of other super-complicated systems.
At least, for having a rule set that is comprehensive AND comprehendibly small, you're far better off stepping outside SIM and heading into narrativist or story-reflective mechanics. In a similar vein, there's a thread in the D&D forum where folks are growling about ability scores and MAD. You can skip that whole train of design-conflict, too.
Personally, I think two tacks are most profitable:
1) Go the route of Fate Accelerated. Use "modes" instead of ability scores. (Forceful, Clever, Quick, Sneaky, Flashy, Careful or pick another set of descriptors.) Which is also used in some Cortex+ implementations. This may seem like an odd direction, but it really does open up things like the Clever Fighter. In a similar vein, you can do this with something like "party" roles, a la the 5 man band trope: Leader, Lancer, Smart Guy, Big Guy, Heart. Either way, you this lets you mostly skip the skill-attribute overlap. Bonus: you can use this alongside a traditional rpg core/engine.
2) Go the route of Cortex+ drama and use things like relationships and drives/values as stats for the rolls. This is a little farther along the "Narrativist" route, but seems like its applicable to almost any genre (exception below).
Exception: It all depends on the feel of the game not the genre. I mean, look, if you want some kind of tactical X's and O's game, then just re-flavor Savage Worlds or any number of other universal systems. There's nothing sacred about any of them, and what a given modifier means or doesn't mean is merely a matter of trappings.
Anyway, just my $.02