Should just leave the "cha-ching" sound in there after you kill an enemy at the level cap. You could max out 6 or 7 of the skills with the original 20 cap in F3, and Broken Steel just broke the game more.
I have to watch 10 hours of cutscenes to know what the hell is going on in the story of FF13. I can choose not to use VATS. The cutscenes are definitely worse.
I don't think every single dialog convo in the game will have different skill options for dialog. Regular persuasion with speech will probably still be the most used, with other options at certain times during quests and whatnot.
I like how you can skip the tutorial garbage and that the Courier sounds like a superior character as far as role playing goes. You're not stuck as a 19 year old.