Doh!
You are absolutely right about what I asked.
As for the abstraction I think that those that wouldn't mind it also wouldn't mind if the rules more accurately represented any endeavor as long as that accuracy was tranparent to play and not a burden. RQ was pretty good about that.
I am also concerned that the idea of being inconvient to some genres doesn't ring alarm bells for a product that is supposed to be generic enough to support many if not all genres.