[A few UI Design tips.]

And for god's sake, just use NORMAL editing functionality. Arrow keys to move around, ctrl-a to select everything, home and end to go to the beginning and end, drag select to select part of the text so you can *replace* it while typing.....

 

And stop screwing up the input box whenever the list of whatever you're searching refreshes

 

[Game Design: How DU can simulate Civilization]

Not sure if I agree on the 'have to be in an org' part. I think that's actually one of the main problems. But other than that, yeah, the skill system doesn't seem particularly well thought out, fitting, or for that matter functional. (There are skills that simply don't work. At all.)