A straight points-based system will inevitably result in cookie cutter characters min-maxed for their assumed role and nothing else. The life path system avoids that. The arithmetic is simply that, and relatively easily automated via spreadsheet (I'm not the only one to have done it).
The key word there is SPREADSHEET.
I should not need a supercomputer in order to play a game. I don't know what else I need to say to suggest that the existing character system - fun and varied as it might be - is ultimately detrimental to the game because it is overly complex, too math intensive, intimidating, requires far too many pages for what it does and takes up too much time.
Yes, it isn't the only aspect of AToW which is flawed. Yes - it can be fun. Yes - you can get used to it. But even leaving aside the horrendous wording and poor layout, new players don't want to play it because it looks overly complex. I don't mind complex characters or stats...I prefer them. But character generation shouldn't require a degree in maths and that's what too many new players see when they pick up the book.
As for cookie cutter builds...I agree with your concern.
However, cookie cutter builds, even with a points based system, is an issue that can be addressed with other limitations and systems.
Nor, dare I say it, are cookie cutter builds a *major* problem IMO. This is a game, the aim is to have fun, and if players like cookie cutter builds, then let them. But allowing players a free choice of (as an example) secondary skills such as the ability to drive, or knowledge of primitive board games or hobbies such as cooking or stamp collecting, or encouraging the GM to drop that Ace MechWarrior into a manhunt without his BattleMech and let him survive the urban jungle while the police hunt him down like a dog is soon going to encourage him to spend his XPs on new skills. Heck...just point out that he's going to be next to worthless when the game goes onto a footbased setting may work wonders.
But if the issue is that your entire party are Mwchwarriors, then the flaw isn't a cookie cutter build but an unhealthy focus that prioritises a certain type of campaign.
Part of the issue here is also a strength...AToWs lack of focus. With other RPGs, there are limits inherent in the format. In SG1, you are part of a military team exploring new worlds. In D&D you are an adventurer out for gold. In Shadowrun, you are part of a criminal gang.
In ATOW...not so much. A Clan campaign is very different from a House campaign or a pirate campaign. You can be in or out of the military, in or out of Mechs or fighters.
But that comes back to the point I raised earlier - BT RPGs share one major fault. Well...several. But one major flaw that has hamstrung efforts to create an RPG. And that is the emphasis given towards recreating the board game. Not integrating the boardgame into the RPG, but replacing it. That eats up space, it forces the RPG to embrace a math heavy approach, it ensures compromises in the game design to ensure that players characters can stand there shooting at a 'Mech and somehow take it down.
ATOW is just as guilty - an RPG does not need squad rules, nor does the game need to replicate the board game. It needs a small extra paragraph against perhaps three or four skills.
Gunnery and Piloting become Gunnery and Piloting.
Initiative is a Tactics roll by the unit commander
Morale Checks are made with Leadership (for a team) or willpower (for yourself)
Avoiding heat shutdown is a Reflexes roll
Avoiding pilot damage from heat is a Willpower save
Avoiding physical pilot damage is a Toughness save
And Edge allows you to reroll once per point spent.
It shouldn't require 20 or 30 pages to replicate something that an RPG doesn't need when a sentence or two in the appropriate skill/attribute description will work. Or a few paragraphs in a dedicated section. Destiny is making the same mistake, IMO, but again...steps in the right direction. Just not enough.
But cookie cutter builds can be discouraged either through text or through specifics creation systems which force a players to choose secondary skills to complement his main fields of study. Or the GM can wean a player off them or forbid them. Or use the 20 Questions style system to encourage a player to think about his characters motivations, goals, backstory.
So - I'm still gonna disagree. I see the problem with cookie cutter builds, but I don't think it is as big as problem as you suggest, nor do I believe a LifePath is the one and only route towards fixing it.
You mentioned Palladiums system as overly complicated...I would disagree. While it too has flaws, which I won't go into, a percentage based roll system is something most players can easily understand because "You have X% chance of success, so roll equal to or less" is a concept based on real life. The 2D10 system it uses is simple, and provides a great deal of granularity that AToWs 2D6 system lacks. The stat generation is simply roll 3D6 and add any bonuses, with some slight modifications available depending on the style of campaign you want. The skill system provides a fixed template, with gaps which a player can use to customise his character, including a Secondary skill system. It is simple, easy to understand and quick.
Although not perfect, Palladiums main problems lie elsewhere. One of those issues is shared by AToW - poor writing and layout.
The key here is to have fun, and have a system that doesn't drive players away through a perception of complexity, deserved or not. ironically perhaps, I think one of the problems with Destiny is that it might be too simple in some ways.
Yeah - I'm never satisfied.
