[Threshold]

Says who? Says you and people like you. That's it. Skill based systems are no better or worse of an abstraction than a level based system. It is nothing more than pure preference. Neither is more realistic or better than the other. You prefer skills over levels. GREAT! There's nothing wrong with that. But when you start declaring your preferences better than everyone else's, then there is a problem.

And by practicing it, you mean standing with your face in a corner duplicating the action over and over again, right? Because that's what happens very often in pure skill based games - especially skilling up through use systems.

The point is: neither is more realistic as a concept. It is all about the implementation. One implementation can be more realistic than another, but skills or levels are both abstractions designed to adjudicate a result in a reasonable and believable way. That's it and that's all.

... they focus on an ultimately arbitrary skill level.

Yeah, we get it.

Well, I wager the main reason is because if someone decides to call their MUD an MMORPG, they aren't going to have their game unfairly bashed by an irrational, foaming at the mouth WoW fanatic.