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"If players have a concept, such as street-wise rogue, or grizzled combat veteran, what happens down the line when the mages are schtumping the opposition and the only real advantage those concepts maintain is simply a few more points in a few skills, which the casters can be developing as well?"
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I am also having this problem. Almost anyone can learn magic in my setting. During playtesting a lot of them got irritated because thier magic spells don't really seem to "work" often enough for their taste.
Basically a spell is a skill and purchased as normal. They pay the cost in Power, roll the dice and see if it works. The problem arose that magic is available and so the players got some spells from 5% to 40%...and then complained mightily.
Why...because if you swing your sword and miss, what are you out? Not much. If you jack up your fireball, what are you out...about 3 Power...and you don't an unlimited supply...
What I have found is that in my setting beginning players see all the powers and skills and options and sort of go nuts...they try to get everything at 10%...and they die.
The second character actually develops into a concept and they start with skills in the 50%-60% range and are viable...
I think that it really comes down to, IMO and experience, is concept...if you want to be a fighter...be a fighter...if you want to be a mage, be a mage, if you want to be a fighter mage, good for you, but you'll never be as good at either profession since you just don't have the resource pool to spread over that many skills.
What this does is force character concepts and the use of "magic". Characters in my setting will now almost always use magic first or last...they no longer use it to solve problems, but to save themselves....
I hope that helps.
-STS