Radical suggestion: eliminate skill points entirely, as well as skill point barriers.

[Crotchfire]

Maybe this is too radical, I don't know.  But here's the thought:

 

All skills could be continuous, and all effects thereof could be as well.  XP would remain pretty much the same, with whatever tweaking you'd like.  Instead of blocks, you just have one long progress bar that increases more slowly the longer it is.

 

Instead of having, say, 6 points in strength and being 3% of the way to 7 points and having your carry weight remain at 14 until you hit that final bit of xp, you'd have a progress bar that would translate to a max carry weight of 14.03.

 

You could keep those arbitrary skill point cutoffs for crafting certain things, OR you could make everything from the start with hilariously disastrous results.

 

Wanna make stairs with no experience in carpentry?  SURE!  Just don't be surprised when it collapses under your dumb ass, breaking your ankle and giving you all sorts of cuts and scrapes and now you wish you'd gotten that tetanus shot.

 

Want to make a salad from your rotten food with no cooking experience?  SURE!  Just don't be surprised that it gives you food poisoning.

 

Want to make a rain barrel with no experience in carpentry?  SURE!  Just don't be surprised that it leaks out all the water it catches and you just wasted all your materials.

 

It would be quite an overhaul, I suspect, but I also think there are some (occasionally hilarious) possibilities here.

[Demonic_Kat]

I think this is a fantastic idea. I don't know how it would be implemented, but in the frame of realism this makes a lot of sense. No one goes from lifting 5lbs (sorry for you metric users, I'm from the USA.. I'm sorry... I'll learn it I swear... eventually...) regularly to 20lbs. Strength gains are gradual as you said. Also people don't learn how to create things that take carpentry skill by reading a book or sawing 50000000000 logs. They learn by practicing.

 

That last part lead me to think that perhaps this may lead to micro skill management. E.g. if you build x amount of rain barrels, you'll eventually master the building of the rain barrels instead of gaining overall carpentry skill.

[lerk]

I had such an idea too, not as radical but somethink like that for building. First (for exaple an wall) you build an "fundation" you need mostly no skill for that. Then you collect planks and nails and "build it up" now its lvl 1. Again, now you need lvl 3 capentry to make it stronger, or you need more materials,more time and it maybe fails. And even it you can build it without the req. Skill you get much Skillpoints and it will be not as "good" or has as much hitpoints as if you had the skill. Even if you used more materials.