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I'm going to respond to a couple things a little out of order, so do forgive me =).

I also feel that feats shy away from characters physically changing (maturing, evolving, mutating, etc). One could add abilities (feats, traits, or whatever) that derive from other sources. Maybe there could be a mechanism for new benefits derived from age, race, or magical influence. One priest might have a bunch of channel powers while another might have mundane abilities. Some Half-elves might grow into their heritage and gain elf traits while other might favor the human and never develop such traits. Maybe some abilities (feats, traits, whatever) have a prerequisite of “ Gift from Magical Entity” and can only be picked after an adventure where the players have done something really super heroic.

There is nothing preventing a DM from doing this for the characters in his/her campaign.  Certainly a DM could rule that you get a new special ability as a result of some extraordinary roleplaying (and perhaps a couple lucky rolls =)).  However, attempting to insert these abilities as a mechanic that results from leveling is far too unpredictable and impractical.  There is no way to know what may take place in the course of any of the infinite adventures that players will embark upon that allows the writers of the system to dictate these enhancements.

Still, I would be remiss if I didn't say that what you say here is a great idea - I love it when my DMs do stuff like this - it's just not something that can be written into the system as a result of a character leveling up.

The thief is the perfect example of this. They have Feats, Maneuvers, Skill Tricks, Rogue Talents, and special abilities at certain levels. Really, Uncanny Dodge is a just a class specific Feat you have to take at 4^th level, it's just not listed as one. Do rogues need that many types of abilities? I think they could be lumped together. If they were only three categories: Skills, Maneuvers, and everything else, then the character could grow as the player sees fit. Why not allow that player to take Taunt instead of Uncanny Dodge at 4^th level?

I see what you're saying.  However, I believe the design is to keep each class unique in and of itself, and so there needs to be a pool of abilities that are specific only to that class.

For instance, the Rogue (who does not get Maneuvers as defined by the 12172012 packet):

• Special Abilities - Abilities inherent to all rogues, such as Skill Mastery and Uncanny Dodge that are not (and should not) be available to other classes
• These help define the rogue class's base capabilities 
• Talents - A list of abilities for the rogue from which you get to choose one as a defining feature of your specific character
• Choosing more than one could lead to seriously broken characters, which is why it is in a category of its own 
• Skill Tricks - A pool of abilities that utilize a rogue's skills (which are significant to the rogue) to perform extraordinary acts using those skills, often involving the skill die
• Essentially, these are a replacement for Maneuvers that give the rogue extra capabilities based on their skills, which are mainstays of the rogue class
• Feats - Additional abilities that are selected from a list from which everyone who meets the prerequisites can choose

I like this multi-tiered approach to building a character.  As a rogue, I know my place in the party because I have things that are only available to me (abilities, talents, skill tricks), but I do get a limited selection of "feats" that I can use to branch out my usefulness, or I can specialize on certain aspects of my character.  And those feats are things anyone can take, so I could wind up sneaking around with a lightly-armored Fighter, and feats would allow him to be good at sneaking around, just probably not as good as I am (especially if I took the same feats he did).

Additionally, focusing on feats sometimes leave skills and manuevers out in the cold. Adding feats as an optional rule will help with that as long as they don't hold back skills in favor of feats.

I have to disagree with this sentiment.  The classes that get maneuvers get more maneuvers than feats, and their maneuver selections define how they fight.  In fact, they can take a feat to get additional maneuvers.  Likewise, the Rogue gets more skills than feats as well, and there is even a feat to give them more skills, and feats to be better at those skills.  The feat that gives a maneuver can't be claimed by any one class, nor can those skill-based feats.  So, they are labeled by the arbitrary term "feat" to provide a means of either branching out or specializing, but it is not specific to any class.

I suppose really what I'm getting at is that I don't quite understand what you want from the system.  I don't think you have any bad ideas here, I certainly enjoy having more options for character building.  I would appreciate if you could be a bit more explicit in your wishes, because right now it sounds like instead of having 4-5 lists of distinct and mutually exclusive abilities for each class, you want a giant pool shared among all classes...which seems to significantly blur the lines of class roles, in which case, why should we have classes at all?  I could be wrong about what you want, but that's what it sounded like.

Thanks for your responses, I do like hearing alternate ideas! =)