le bump

I greatly prefer a complex and robust progression system.

Same here maybe you should have both since your on PC it should have enough Hardware to be able to have Casual and Hardcore(Eve Online level) Skill trees.
I assume that if you skill amarr assault only Laser/Scrambler weapons will be able to skill into.Only Caldri assault could get a Rail Rifle .Now my question once you got to that point of the skill tree can you use the weapon on the other races suit?

Throwing my name in as another merc deeply concerned about CCP Z's progression idea. Many of you have already stated my concerns far more eloquently than I could, but it's worth reiterating:

Making all suits BPOs is a terrible idea. The idea that you shouldn't be able to lose a suit you bought, and that it shouldn't hurt to lose it, is counter to the very spirit of the New Eden universe (and also to CCP Scarpia's vision that everything in Eve should be destructible). You can bump prices on fitting items to make it just as expensive, but the fact remains that you have an item that can't be lost, and that unsettles me a lot. You can have your Tony Stark "hall of suits", but those suits are really worth nothing other than that "emotional attachment" Z seemed to like if they can't be lost. I still have a Stabber Fleet Issue in Eve that survived the Battle of 6VDT-H, but I'm fully prepared to put it at risk and get it destroyed, and wouldn't have it any other way.

Locking weapon types to suit types is also concerning. Where is the fitting variety? Why shouldn't I be able to put a sidearm and a rep tool on a heavy and call it a tanked logi? Why must we be limited on what we can fit? In Eve, ships have bonuses and slot layouts to encourage people to fit them a certain way, but the nature of a sandbox game is that you can do whatever you want and not be subject to artificial limitations. The Eve community is well known for doing all sorts of things CCP doesn't expect, and by implementing this mechanic you're removing a large part of that ability. Why can't we be able to choose what we fit instead of having it decided for us?

"If we are only free to make good decisions, we are not truly free." -Ron Paul

http://youtu.be/n_LlH2c5dyA?t=41s

One thing that strikes me as odd is CCP Z's insistence on "people not getting it" - basically asserting that the majority of players is ignorant of the supposed variety of viable options, which makes the progression monotonuous and unfun.

I'm afraid to say I notice undertones of a frightening lack of trust in the cognitive capacity and problem solving ability of CCPs core target audience: The "Thinking Man's Shooter" as CCP used to characterize their game and, by extension, their playerbase.