I'm going to disagree with you on the issue of customization. I've been playing D&D since I got the nice blue and red boxes of the Basic and Expert rules sets. I've never had any problem either as a DM or player or with any of the players in my games customizing their characters. I've built characters that were memorable for who they were and the things they did not their class skills or what skills they invested in.
Customizing characters, at least to me, is not about what feat they get or what special ability at what level, its about what the player does with that character, the time, effort and personality they put into it. In that regard, 3e is very similar to 4e in that it turns the game into more of a combat game where you have to plan out levels, classes and feats far in advance or you somehow end up deficient or less than optimal.
While I like d20 in regard to some of its simplicity (basing the game around a single die, high rolls are always good, etc.), I think that getting rid of a lot of the crap (just plain silly armor class values, feats as more than descriptive text or cool maneuvers, special abilities every level), then you can get back into more of the roleplaying and less worrying about whether you took the right class at the right level, have enough ranks, took the right feat.
And as for the skill thing, that kind of turns things upside down. For one, you're making all the 2 and 4 skill pt/level classes more powerful and you're weakening bards, rangers and rogues, especially bards and rogues whose significant traits of their classes were their class skill selections and their skill points. Are you doing anything to balance out that deficiency or just flipping the bird to those classes? Its irrelevant to whether the players care or not. Of course they won't because now they don't need to be a bard unless they want to sing a song and they don't need to be a rogue unless they want evasion or picking up a little sneak attack.
If you want other classes to have more skills or be more versatile, then consider grouping some redundant skills together (like Listen and Spot, Hide and Move Silently) or make some skills class skills for everyone (like climb, jump and swim). But a blanket change like what you propose only weakens the game when you don't do anything to mitigate the weaknesses you've caused.
I'm not going to comment on the choosing offense or defense stuff since I don't have the material you're referencing.
