Heh...well, looking at these and using my own intution I feel completely justified in my mod with preventing the lowering of many traits below 100.
In our games the same things were being seen over and over again...completely reduce Strength and Cunning and crank up the others. IMO, this is a DEFINATE balance problem. There is no way a point of Strength should cost as much as Research or Mining or whatnot.
I've gone ahead and tweaked the hell out of that file and made many of the better items more expensive and the less important ones cheaper. IMO, its made for a much better game and one in which, once again, the AI is more competitive. If you look at the AI files, none of them does the kind of 'mini-maxxing' that players will do. IIRC, not one trait is below 100. So, IMO, I think player's should have to play on the same field.
Talenn