Also a fan of 4e, but the Utility powers were very unfocused. They were more likely to give you a choice of combat, exploration and social at the same level, leading to players picking up nothing but combat powers.
The idea of a specific level giving choices that match only one pillar seems safer. There will be some overlap, but that's fine, encounters often have elements of more than one pillar in them.
Yeah. The 4e Utility could include things like mobility, maybe even defense and healing, as well as detection, things that can be highly useful during combat − especially mobility.