I see the centre as just a perk, what branch you take to getting there is for me the main thing as i feel they will only give enough skills in the end for limited branching so it would be very hard to go all out on just one. 

I think the skill progression (as far as actual point usage, not earning the points) is pretty decent. Although none of the percentages are too high, some of them are immediately noticeable when unlocked (like that Focus regen for Crusaders). There's also a continue growing of power involved that sometimes is more noticeable than others - the gradual stacking of speed makes you go from feeling like a clunky meandering AT-AT to some sort of highly armored street racer, zipping about. I do think that when it comes to damages, the PL has a far more noticeable effect than the skills do, but considering how PL works I guess that's inevitable.

The center skill, I don't know about yet - far off from having those many skill points yet. Honestly, I haven't really seen any skill in specific that's made me really crave it beyond the focus regen rate (at least the first one) and the movement speed. Maybe that will change as I get further into it though, who knows.

And your right, they did say they were re-adjusting the balance between account and character leveling. We should be earning account levels far closer to the character levels right now - and I imagine that steady increase of points will help the earning progression feel better, with the stat increases becoming much more noticeable as you get more of them before a huge shift in PL, as opposed to know where you might go up in PL two or three moderate times before you really come off with another PL.

Lol its still in alpha let's see what beta and or release has to offer