They're doing a reprint this year, though. I wouldn't call it dead yet... ;)
And they've always had trouble with situational bonuses, across all their systems (Shadowrun et al. included).
Ultimately, even if you use a priority system, Attributes, Traits and Skills ARE in the same point pool. AToW at least makes it explicit so you can see it more clearly.
I was not saying they were going to abandon it, I was saying they are just going to reprint it with maybe a few error fixes.
And the last comment I was expecting.
No, the priority system does not truly put the Attributes,
Traits Advantages and Skills in the same point pool.
Make that statement show a lack of understanding of the priority system.
First, you can choose to have two level 4 priorities and either 1 level 2 or 2 level ones, which for humans gets you some pretty good stats. Flexible priorities Pg. 15 MechWarrior Corebook.
Second, assigning a level 0 priority to Vehicle is the same as assigning 200 to 800 points in Vehicle in AToW without spending the 200 points to own the vehicle. Character Vehicles Pg.11 MechWarrior Companion.
Third, the minimum attributes you can get by assigning level 0 priority to Attributes is already human norm.
Fourth, the tiers of the priority levels are balanced within the game not between categories. Priority Level 2 skills are not balanced with Priority Level 2 Attributes.
For example of what this would look like in AToW points:
Priority Attribute Skills Advantages BattleMech
0 1,800 90 0 0-200
1 2,100 100 100 400
2 2,400 150 200 600
3 2,700 190 300 800
4 3,000 200 400 1,000
So as you can see taking Priority 4 in any of the categories is not the same. As said earlier the categories are balanced to the game not to some set point system