LigH, that's the interesting part of it. The max everything approach changes all character interactions from professional relationships into those more resembling lord/serf. A brand new mage just out of the academy who meets an accomplished wizard would naturally assume a subservient attitude. That's not necessarily true of persons with different trades. For example, if a low level fighter interacts with a higher level wizard, he should be given some kind of professional courtesy. It's certain that even a low level warrior is better at martial combat than the wizard. The same is true of smiths, miners, leatherworkers, etc. In PS not only is it not certain, it's almost certainly the opposite. So anyone you meet falls into two categories: more powerful, or weaker. When you're a newb you'll aways be the serf, which can be demoralizing but if you stick with it eventually you'll always get to be the lord.

LigH, your point is well taken and most people, even those who disagree with your position, will stipulate to it (provisionally).

I am going to do you a favor though, and intercept what comes next; the obligatory "But This Isn't Real Life" rebuttal. A few posts after, yet another post would have used reality to discredit any proposed limitations of course. Historically, it goes like this: (A) "There should be restrictions on training", (B) "No there shouldn't because of such and such real life example" (A) "Actually, real life doesn't work like that" (C who agrees with B) "But This Isn't Real Life". This circular logic has dictated the pace of the discussion for the last three pages.

So here's the core of the issue: In addition to not being an accurate model, maxing many unrelated abilities *limits gameplay*.

Here's how and why:
The top of character progression is a character with all abilities maxed
Thus, sense of accomplishment is skewed towards that character progression
Thus, anyone who intends to keep playing will have the same goals and motivation
Thus, in-game characters are extremely similar, meaning they act the same, have [many|all] occupations, and their stats don't denote relative meaning
Thus, characters don't need anyone else since they are equally skilled in everything as all others of their pp/tria level (no niches)

Anecdote. Someone in the game told me to contact them if I needed a mage. A mage, I thought, how quaint. Why would he limit himself like that? I already picked up magic for my Ynnwn since it is easy and useful. Am I wrong? Now I know the reader has not been paying attention for awhile since they are already skimming to formulate their responses. If any of you did make it this far, those of you who are RPers will begin to retort, "None of this is true, because I make crap up about my character that is not really expressed by in-game mechanics". To which the obvious answer is "We're talking about game mechanics, which does not affect your fantasy either way, so those are not germane to the discussion".

Now that I've structured all of these arguments into one post, it makes it really easy to reference it. Anyone who uses one of these tired arguments in the future should be backhanded with a link to this post. We should now be able to go new places or let the discussion die in peace.

so I must have found a bug in reality as I know someone who did that.

Really? You know someone who has achieved the top of human experience in every attribute and skill? That's amazing (that you really think that).

The arguments have been made on both sides, and if you still disagree so be it. If I continued to respond I would just become very redundant. The answers to all your arguements/questions are in my last two posts.

Alas Poor Yorick, it doesn't hurt me a bit.

It does, you went through all the trouble of maxing every stat even though ostensibly you're not using them all in character. Why did you do that? Was it like Mt. Everest, because they were there? Or was it because everyone else does it so you have to in order to be competitive? And now you're just like they are, defeating the purpose of attributes in the first place (as a measure of one person's ability vs. another's). That's a pretty big disconnect between how these systems are intended to function and how they are being used.

Many of the recent Olympians and national champions actually DO have master or doctorate degrees in the computer, physical and biological sciences.  It IS possible to have both intelligence and physical prowess.  It's just not universal.  And if you look at the broad range of players in the game.. it's not universal there to see characters who do both magics and melee. 

The easy answer is somewhere there's another person who is better at computers and physical or biological sciences than the Judo guy. Even if that's not true in real life, it needs to be in a role playing game for niche protection. No one is saying you can't do both, what we're saying, or at least what I'm saying, is that the top of one field should not be at the top of the other simultaneously (unless they are related). So Tesla should not mix with Miyamoto Musashi to make super intelligent unstoppable guy. In game terms, you shouldn't be able to max both and still be just as good as any guy who maxed one. Otherwise, why would anyone only max one?

Secondly, I'm one of those players trying to gain high stats if not maxed in everything.  ...  And it's not hurting someone else by me sitting in a wilderness training, anymore than it hurts mine by someone sitting at a furnace. 

Fine, go forth. But the game should not allow you to max every ability and skill. If the goal of the game is to max every stat, then all characters will have basically the same progress and same result, only the RP is different. If that is the case, why pretend there's any differentiation in skills and stats to make them unique? Just drop that abstraction and compare something more general such as using base level as the true measure of your progress. Once you hit max in everything all chars are the same anyhow.

If you insist upon imposing restrictions like this, you will run players off to other games, where they can grind to their heart's content, without people whining about it.  And it won't just be the PLers who leave, it will be the people who choose to explore every side of the game, but find some of them summarily closed to them. 

That's why no one plays WOW for example, because it's too balanced (by the way, I've never played WOW but people seem to like it).

Imposing restrictions like this hinders character development over time.  It means whatever path you start on, you have to finish.

No it doesn't, it just means you can't be all things at all times. You could allow plenty of flexibility to allow a career change. It could warn you that if you choose to train X then your skills in Y might degenerate for example. Ultimately, the way you like it just doesn't make sense from a game theory perspective, sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Your argument is that if it isn't perfect it isn't better. Or as Voltaire said, "the perfect is the enemy of the good". Sorry but I disagree. Canonizing optimal builds and min/maxing exploits would be like Shakespearian literature compared to the current exploit of being able to maximize every stat and skill in the game. You can mitigate the effect such players have on the game, or your can do nothing.

If you don't like the semantics of "unrealistic" how about "contradictory"? If you want a bunch of supers running around then there's no problem, though they are usually balanced by the fact that other supers can kill with eye beams and mind bullets.

I think that Tzarhunt's idea has merit. Though, depending on the implementation you may get stuck if you raise the wrong abilities too far and can't afford to raise any of them.

EDIT: Also, just to clarify, when I said "impossible" to train opposing abilities, I meant impossible past a certain percentage of max.

Someone with max Strength might also have max Endurance, but it feels wrong that they would also have max Intelligence. I think that's the basis of the problem. What if training one past a certain point makes it either harder or impossible to train the other? So you get a sort of "training resistance" for opposing abilities. The same idea could be extended to skills also, with different magics hindering combat training in different ways or being good at Heavy Armour makes it hard to master Hide in Shadows, etc. etc.