Each Stat would have a couple of core skills representing universal human potential, and then players would basically make up their own skills to round out their characters.

Skills could include things which might normally be considered backgrounds or sidelines- wealth, contacts, organizational membership... they would be a catchall for "stuff that isn't powers" basically. Powers are already so wonderfully DIY, that doing the same with skills seems exquisitely easy and possibly elegant.

Here's my thoughts on the thing, in specific.

Core Skills- Each Stat has a couple of core skills, which can be renamed or made more specific by players wishing to define their characters more.

BODY
Struggle- Basic close-in fighting with hands or held weapons. Punching, kicking, scratching, clawing, stomping, choking, and clobbering.
Athletics- Running, swimming, sports, endurance... any sort of non-combat physical activity.

COORDINATION
Dodge- Getting out of the way of incoming harm.
Sneak- Avoiding being noticed.

SENSE
Notice- Sensing things in your immediate environment which stand out as significant.
Reaction- adds to SENSE for the purposes of action declaration.

BRAINS
Education- How much stuff you know about stuff in general.
Sense Motive- How good you are at interpreting the true motivations of other people.

COMMAND
Persuasion- Convincing another person to do what you want them to do.
Inspiration- Convincing another person to feel how you want them to feel.

COOL
Deceive- Making a person believe or think something that isn't true.
Stability- Keeping yourself from freaking out when bad things happen.

Players can customize these, giving them more evocative names- Struggle might become "Stomp a Mudhole in Your Ass" AND/OR make the more specialized. "Brazilian Ju-Jitsu" would't help you swing a sword, but would be great at tying some punk in knots and breaking his limbs.

Players might also keep the generic core skill as-is (or makeup an equally broad one) and then take additional skills which would fall under it to denote particular expertise. This reduces the cost of these specialist skills by -1/2/4 until the two skills are of equal value, after which they are bought at normal full value. For example, a character with "Notice +3d" could get "Smell +3d" for 3 points rather than the normal 6 points, but to increase it to 4d would cost the normal 2 per regular skill die. If this makes for to much niggly bookkeeping, ignore this element of the thing.

Skill Costs
I tinkered with doing the skill cost/scope mod thing on the front end rather than the back end... it makes the build process for skills take longer, but perhaps it would save time in play from dickering and complaining.

To keep it as easy as possible, and to keep Skills less expensive than the stat they nest under, perhaps doing it in three levels (each for 1/2/4) to keep it easy, with the default being 2/4/8.

• 1/2/4 skills are really specific- expertise in a specific class of a given weapon, knowledge of a particular subject within a discipline, ability to comprehend a regional dialect of a larger language family, the acuteness of a specific sense. "Computer programming"
• 2/4/8- covers a the core skills and other make'em'up general fields of expertise. "Computers" 
• 3/6/12- broad expertise applicable to many situations. "Technology"
  

Different dice
By CodexArcanum
What is the difference between regular, hard and wiggle dice when you make up a background skill like "Contact: Asssasin's Guild"?

Regular dice are general *whatevers*. General contacts, general funds, general ability to call upon your Fraternity of Thieves for aid. The more dice the merrier.

Hard dice are potent, but limited use of a resource. I think of them as authority. E.g. Hard Dice contacts are guys who owe you favors, or blood debts more likely. HD Fraternity is your rank in the frat. You have the power to not just call up on them, but command them. Being inflexible hard dice, though, folks might dislike your for bossing them around, but you've got authority.

Wiggle dice are like hard-won resourcefulness. WD contacts are specialists you know, who can get you what you need, and are close friends. WD Fraternity doesn't exactly mean you have rank, but you have influence and pull. You can get what you need from the organization, maybe without them even knowing you're getting it.

Designer Notes
I did chargen earlier tonight for my alt-history Victorian game using this method. The make'em'up method worked really really well- especially the background skills idea.

One character- a Dionysian figure- has a skill for his following of fallen and falling women that he has debauched, with a flaw which works like 'depleted' except when he 'uses it up' rather than needing to be recharged, the women tear him apart in a bacchanalian frenzy, consume his flesh, and then he is reborn from the orgiastic chaos that follows.

Another is a half-Indian half-English actress who is an avatar of Kali-Durgha, who leads an underground Thuggee cult operating in Greater London.

The third- a Victorian Indiana Jones adventuring academic- is so well know and well traveled, that he'll be able to find contacts and friends just about anywhere.

The price for this kind of background detail seems perfect at the skill costs- and as with the first character, modding it with flaws and extras can give you some really interesting results.

After seeing what my players did with this, I'm really really excited about this mod.