My take on this whole IP idea is this simply. Its flat out unfair to change them. You spend the "lifetime" of your character developing the abilities. You raise your pistol skill as you need to go because you need it to get better weapons. Allowing any kind of redistribution would be backwards to the development of the character. I lost major interest with Diablo II when I found a "trainer program" that allowed you to instantly generate a character basically from scratch. I had already beaten the game multiple times and figured what the hell. Bam, 95th level druid armed to the teeth. Wee. Look I can mosh through the game, fun fun.
The same thing goes here. Allowing redefinition of the character removes an element from the game. MMORPG, role playing game, not Stat-Optimization-Game. You chose skills because something happened and you wanted it to. I'm building up my meta-physic with an emphasis on Heavy Grinners, (pistol, burst, rifle) That's relatively expensive for my character but I can still advance my primaries and toss a few around on map readers or weapon skills. By allowing people to re-arrange their skills, the development becomes next to meaningless. Regardless of how many IPs you get back whether its +2% or -2%, you're still changing the character completely.
I look at my character and go, wow, I remember spending 300 points on Melee because I started with one of those funky shield things... well, I guess its a waste now but its part of the character...
As far as the skill costs go... Why? Why ignore the rest of the game and sit and ***** about the IP? Oh, yeah, ego. Forgot about that... *shrug* Maybe someone should just grow up, say you're wrong, and walk away. It doesn't matter who's right or if anyone IS right. Go do something more constructive then fire-fight over something trivial.