Templates largely fixed the huge list of skills issue particularly for modern and science fiction games. Although having useful ones for genres scattered throughout the line doesn't help but it isn't as bad as 3e was.
As for Powers, my opinion is that 4e fixed this. My own experience in creation new abilities and following examples given in various e23 publications and on the forum found the whole system relativity straight forward.
My complaints about GURPS 4e not so much of system but rather of presentation. I found the game itself is better designed and different levels of detail and complexity can be easily setup using the same set of rules.
It just for a novice you have wade through everything to get the stuff you want for a particular campaign. Not hard for somebody who been playing for decades like, myself, but for novice a major obstacle compared to competing system.
The big issues is still the d20 system. For D&D style fantasy it provided the right level of complexity for customizing characters. Through various class combination you can make any type of fantasy character you want.
The Open Game License meant that a family of related (although not exactly interchangeable) d20 games developed for different genres also negating on GURPS historical advantage.
Note that this impacted Hero Games as much as GURPS.
All of these meant that the flow of players looking for alternatives was effectively choked off for games like GURPS. That it experiences a faster decline as shrunk not only due to the contraction of the market but relative to rival systems.
Kromm at SJ Game stated the design goal of GURPS in posts like this one.
http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=874525&postcount=312# SJ made an executive decision that GURPS would be a toolkit for adapting creative content from other games more so than a game with lots of creative content of its own.
# GURPS is generic, and doesn't have a preferred genre that unites most of its customer base.
My opinion that GURPS will continue to decline unless it has at least one avenue that a newcomer can buy and experience the system for one genre. The one genre I recommend is fantasy. Otherwise the route for newcomers to GURPS is effectively choked off.