Umm... no... your observation does not fit my intentions in AO. If I had wanted the most "powerful" toon, I'd have rolled an enforcer or advy or the like from the get go. I *like* the IDEA of a fixer. However, fixers have not matched that idea from the moment SL was put into play and their development was put into the back-water. I'm not looking for "power"... I'm looking for CHOICES AND OPPORTUNITY. Unfortunately, it took until I got to level 174 to realize that my CHOICES are severely limited, and you are almost FORCED into playing a particular type based on your race/class.
And AO is not about getting gear and levelling? Really? How do you get to experience the entire game's content without that? Let's say you do all the Ergo quests and have lots of cash from other toons and skip right into Inferno. Can you *do* anything there without having massively leveled? Can you equip decent equipment without leveling? And, pray tell, how does one level; can you level ithout endless killing and grinding? A crafter MUST fight or be on a team that fights to succeed in the game. Conversely, a PvPer, except for some end-game characters, must sacrifice many aspects of character development to be able to succeed at PvP, AND must spend massive time acquiring "gear".
To run around "role-playing" that I've conquered this and that, or that XYZ fight was amazing or travelling to such and such place was *wow*... all that is not *believeable* if I don't have the level and equipment to match, at least in AO and games of its ilk.
From a "role-playing perspective"... let's say I want to be a shotgun expert and at the same time play an Agent... that would be a total waste of IP. Or let's say I wanted to play a fixer, and do fixerish stuff, but be melee. Do-able? Yes? But total waste of IP.... the designers dictate what you can do based on the amount of IP it takes to level a skill... this is especially evident at the highest levels, when every point of skill costs 2000 or more IP. You don't have unlimited IP nor unlimited IPRs. SUMMARILY: Cookie-cutter setups.