Wine ends up being a part of my campaigns. With gm approval, I end up discussing "great vintages", and drone on and on in-character to the other pc's about the vineyards in this or that unexplored place-name on the campaign map. Just like a real life wine-snob boring their uninterested friends...
I'm still a couple days behind catching up on this discussion, but my thinking is evolving as I have time to digest these posts. Here's where I'm at... So, a 0 exp level adventurer is barely fractionally superior to the other urchin/acolyte/outlanders that he/she was raised among. And a level 5...
I really like where you are going with this!
I know this is an informal poll, but herein lies the issue with generating a unified system. I just think it is so complicated, but well worth the effort to figure it out. Decisions regarding feats and ASIs as the pc progresses affects starting AS...