3.5ed Faction Affiliations

Well I run a pre-faction war campaign so I focused on the main factions in Sigil. I used the Factol's Manifesto as a guide to help figure out what kind of benefits the affiliations should have. It was very helpful. I'd assume it would a lot harder to create affiliations for other factions since there isn't as much information about them in published books. I just can't dedicate the time & effort for that project

 Let me know what your group thinks of the affiliations. I wrote them by myself & I'm not much a rules guy, so any feedback is appreciated.

 A lot of this stuff I had a hard time trying to put into words and be a short enough sentence to stay on 1 line.  This was one of them. This is also a questionable criteria that I wasn't confident with. My player is a Cipher and also called me out on it complaining that it was unfair...but my players complained about anything that could be seen as a negative & didn't complain about anything that might have been overpowered. So it was hard getting honest feedback from them.

What I meant was that the Cipher gains a +1 if he put at least 1 skill point in all of those skills. He takes a -1 if he does not have at least 1 point in all of those skills. My thinking was that a Cipher needs to train himself in all kinds of physical & mental skills at least a little in order to fully act without thought.

 The player kept complaining that it would cripple his PC by spreading skill points around like that. I explained that it is not something a player has to do if he is more worried about character optimization over roleplaying. The affiliation rules are a choice & meant to provide a benefit for roleplaying their faction belief, and if you think something is crippling, then just avoid that choice. I told him that Ciphers who train in those skills may be more dedicated to achieving higher status in the faction than a Cipher that doesn't, that's all.  If he doesn't put skill points in those skills, it is not going to nerf his character class, so the only thing to worry about is the fact it may take longer to raise in affiliation rank.  

 I understand the fact that I even had to explain my reasoning for that rule may be an indicator that it's a bad rule. So if you have any alternatives for improving it or rewording it, I'm all ears