Yeah, I was just speaking so off the cuff about what I was feeling that I never really ended up with a solid position, did I? Heh!
I suspect my primary decision point will probably be to use whatever Aspect-like module they include in the game (assuming that they do include in in the game.) Mainly because I feel as though having descriptive phrasing to illustrate what a PC is good at has more of a feeling of connection between the fluff of the background and the mechanics that they give you.
On the one hand, a person could easily just use the Background itself as the skill system. If you are a Charlatan, then you can add your prof bonus to any ability check for which you can justify your Background applying. (And way back when they first were talking about open-ended skill lists and not aligning skills to ability scores... this seemed like a strong way to go.) But on the other hand... adapting a descriptive or Aspect-like system to build off a Background could focus a PC's story even further. So a PC's background might be Sailor... and the three(?) descriptive foci the player creates for himself based on that Sailor background could be (as an example) "At Home In The Crow's Nest", "Does What The Captain Ordered", and "Piracy In The Blood". And when situations occur during the game where an ability check is called for... the PC has to figure out and illustrate why any of those descriptions might warrant gaining the prof bonus.
Admittedly, it would still be quite easy for this kind of system to then devolve into a de facto "skill list" if I wasn't careful. So for example, the PC says that being At Home In The Crow's Next means he can spot things out on the horizon, and thus it ends up becoming a "Perception" skill (in all but name) when all is said and done. But then its really up to me as a DM to start making judgement calls on the types of "Perception" checks that I'm calling for, and when and where his At Home In The Crow's Next might apply. So for instance, listening at a dungeon door, which in a skill list system would have Perception apply... I might determine that nope, At Home In The Crow's Nest wouldn't because that's really geared towards long-distance spotting with a minimum of terrain interferring.
It puts more impetus on both the player and me to really delve into just what the PC is truly exceptional at, which hopefully gets us both thinking about how his Background really and truly informs his character... rather than just him and three other party members all having "Perception", which does not actually distinguish any of those characters from each other.
