I couldn't agree more. This may be a tendency among modern gamers, brought up in the ear of splat-books which provide rules and background for every conceivable RPG situation. The one thing which first got me into RPGs, and which has stuck in my mind ever since, is in the introduction to a lot of those older games. They invariably said something to the effect that "there are no rules, only guidelines" - it's your game, do with it what you like.

BRP is a particularly open-ended system, and I have never found this alleged glass ceiling which people talk about. I suspect, as so much forum-backseat-gaming, this is just down to people repeating what has been said (and often argued very convincingly) without actually trying things out in a real game situation.

For example, what about a bladesharp 50 spell, if giant-felling is your bag?

On the point of rules features, we did at one point experiment with things in RQIII, inspired by GURPS advantages and again by D20 feats. But we found that these things could easily be simulated in the system without changing the rules - an extra point of CON here, a bit of a Spot bonus there.