Thanks for the write up, Happy. I played Warhammer back when it was based on Rolemaster / MERP and it was a terrible system. So many players maimed literally in character creation.
This is a tangent, but what are you referring to here? I had both RM/MERP and WFRP back around first edition (late 80s/early 90s), and the systems were completely different. It's mostly Traveller that is famous for maiming during character creation, and it wasn't a big part of either of those games. I'd heard that some of the more recent mods of WFRP were different, but related to Rolemaster? If we're avoiding a thread derail, what can I be reading to get some capsule history here?
1e RM/MERP: 10 percentile-based stats, many fine-grained skills with 20+ levels possible in each, level-based character class commitment at creation, spending skill points on level-up.
1e WFRP: mix of percentile-based and single-digit-number stats, fewer skills and fewer skill levels, character professions changing over the course of play, spending XP directly on profession-enabled skill/stat changes, not the explicit foregrounded levels.