Characteristics vs. Promotions:
I've an idea for heros. Thought I'm not sure what its fullest potential is.
Instead of your basic promotions, including magic ones, could we not have promotions represent the lifespan and story OF that hero.
Weapons and Armor would take the place of the promotions that exist in vanilla FFH.
The promotions that come through gain of experiance could be replaced with "moments" of history for the character.
For example, one promotion might be "charitable", this promotion would represent the hero acting in some glorious way during the course of the game, this promotion would give the hero benefits with the populace at large, perhaps giving a economic bonus to any city he/she is currently in.
Another example could be "ruthless" this promotion would cause fear in the hearts of enemies AND allies. A city with a ruthless hero in it would never revolt, and enemies would cower (Fear promotion clone?) in front of them.
In this, Heroic promotions could always be about the character and story of the hero, as opposed to his/her specilization. IN THIS, you could make all your items REPLACE the former vanilla promotions.
This idea does two cool things: A) It preserves normal promotions into a tangble and exchangeable solution in weapons/items. (Thus also giving your items purpose and meaning). B) It expresses the "story" of the hero, as he/she progresses (gains xp) a story unfolds as to the moral, social and intellectual pursuits OF that hero. Seeing a hero with the promotions: Charitable, Ruthless, War Hero, and Seer would be very intersting indeed. I've no idea what the promotion tree would look like, but I'm sure we could come up with something.
-Qes