I'm going to say I don't see that.
First, I don't honestly see raw intelligence as the be all end all (or the physical abilities). It just doesn't seem to reflect the people I've met and what I've observed in my own life.
Most tasks in this world, as opposed to a strict physical or mental feat (stunt), are resolved largely by training or experience or both moreso than any physical or mental capacity.
Skill over attribute:
Medicine
Almost any technical or scientific skill (I'd say all, but maybe there is one I can't think that mostly attribute driven)
Even most interpersonal stuff can be and is learned (trader, broker, interrogation, investigation, diplomacy, negotiation, streetwise, etc)
Then there's the notion that you can get away with zero level skills and very few other skill levels. If you want to play a binary game (has it/doesn't), then maybe.
Our world is full of gradations.
Look at any trade: Newbie/student, apprentice, journeyman,master.
Look at martial arts: Many have at least 10 ranks, some have as many as 20 (10 sub-black, 10 black belt degrees). There's a big difference between no training, a two week introduction, the first two years of training, the next two years of training, and the next 10 years of training.
Look at technical skills: No training, a student that knows only some broad things (or someone who just took a two week course intro to a much larger subject), then a year course, a 3 year course, someone who has done that then 4 years apprenticeship, then someone who has been doing it for 15 years after schooling.
In medicine: No training, a weekend first aid course, a several month first responder course, a couple of year premed, a graduate doctor from medical school, said doctor after a 4-5 year residency, that doctor after another 10-15 years of experience.
And mechanically, if I look at it from a CT point of view (not my favourite of the skill mechanics, but a point of discussion I suppose):
8+ for most things
So if I was to gain only the removal of the -3 penalty for not having a skill, yes a zero level skill gives you a much better chance, but it stil makes routine but still risky things a challenge to succeed at. And really hard things ought to be a lot worse. If you only had a couple of medical levels beyond 0, then there's lots that would fail a lot more often.
If I look at this in MT:
7+ for routine, but skills for a full fledged doc might well be 3-4 and a 5 would be a very well trained or experienced specialist, but then difficulty might be 11+ for tough stuff and that could reduce it to something fairly accomplishable without other negative circumstances.
The amount of change in a single 1 level of a skill (other than non-linear gains like voiding the non-skilled penalty) is NOT very large in the probabilities of 2D6 resolution.
In my many times at the Traveller table, a bunch in CT, but later and still a lot in MT or MgT a bit now, I find that a single skill level above level 0 is not enough for any sort of feeling that the character is significantly better than level 0. You need at least a +2 from skills to being to feel like harder tasks are notably simpler. And to feel like you are a very competent and well trained individual, +4 is more like it.
Further, more skill levels serve two functions beyond the dice mechanics that are useful to a *game*:
1) More gradation gives players things to grow into or to be rewarded with over time (for a lot of skill use) - If we play a game where a +1 is a full professional and a +3 is pretty much the best out there, then the players have less chance to show development over time without really changing their impact. If +3 is a full professional and +5 is the best out there, then the range to grow through is longer.
2) With assigning difficulties and deciding how many things to roll for, if you have a wider skill range and thus more impact on the 2D6 curve in rolling, you can afford to throw more rolls in to keep players having fun throwing some dice. You can make more drama out of more parts of a complex op. With fewer skill levels and more perilous die results, you ought to be more careful about how many rolls you want to make the players risk (because there is more risk). For any complex chain task, your odds of screwing up the operation go up with the fewer-skill level setup.
It's not that you can't make CT's (to my mind) early and showing its age now resolution mechanic work - we've all proven at one point or another that one can have fun playing games where the mechanics aren't so much helpful as an additional challenge to wade through - but it just feels to me like the real world has a lot more gradations in it and that the advantages offered by that sort of a system offers a few other utilities in how a game is run.
Plus my other complaint about CT, some see as an advantage, is that unless I had the book handy, I'd never have come up with the various example values for rolls because some of the DMs attached to those examples seem very arbitrary and there isn't a lot of consistency across those examples IMO. This is, to me, where a more complete task system can provide a more consistent set of modifiers and mechanics and has more information about degrees of success (but handled again in more consistent ways).
I realize some of that is personal taste. I prefer worlds with deep variations and an accurate ability to describe people I know and CT could never quite get there in my experience.
I think we'll all agree though that this is a personal taste issue. Some groups rarely like to use their dice, others like to roll something regularly. Some don't do much fisticuffing or shooty-shoot-shoot. Some use those as 'plan A'. And some want the most spartan of character sheets with minimal numbers of stats (I've seen some examples of having 1 physical and 1 mental attribute instead of groups of attributes in each of those folders) and that prefer very minimal fleshing out of characters mechanically. Many seem to hate enhanced generation (some for more skills, others maybe for the process) whereas my groups ALWAYS wanted the metagame that the advanced systems brought into play (it wasn't even the skill levels, it was the whole process of building your character in detail).
So there isn't a wrong here, I don't suppose. There's just some as are attracted to the simplicity of CT, but I'm more interested in a nuanced world and nuanced PCs and NPCs and I find a greater variability (more skills, more levels) gives the game something good.
And in the name of all that is holy in game design, if you are going to go with a short list of skills, making every type of gun or blade a separate skill is hard to defend (handgun, rifleman, large blades, small blades are much more reasonable). And having steward and vacc suit skills but being very short on interpersonal skills is an odd choice in CT that also always felt strange.
Anyway, that's my perspective. I know there are a fair few die hards from the same era I started that still think that was the best. I've liked most of them (except T4 - gosh that art put me off...) and that may make me unusual.
TomB