Should backgrounds develop, or are they things that happened in the past and there they are? If the later, then should the game award backgrounds as players do things? If you literally save the peasants in the kingdom from the horde of slavers that tried to take over, then why aren't you a "Hero of the People"? If you've spent ten levels of advancement and a year in game time sailing the seas, do you get "Sailor"? If not, what exactly did your (possibly) late teen/young adult character do that was more!?