Hi,
Although I agree that vf balance does not quite work in AM, never really has, and exists here because Champions did it, I mostly disagree with the rest.
Real people are not infinitely malleable or even equally malleable over their lives, but tend to learn more easily and quickly early in life, and lose ability more easily and quickly later.
It's possible to learn a second profession, but most people do not. It's possible to learn a second language at 50, but it is far easier at 8. It's a lot more likely to go from -1 Dwarf to +3 Giant between the ages of 12 and 19 than between the ages of 32 and 39. Going from uneducated to educated is easier early.
One can acquire a Guardian Angel at any time, without even doing anything! But there really isn't something one can do to get a guardian angel, and just giving a character a Guardian Angel just because is kind of similar to telling a player that his character now has a demon who especially hates him - Free Flaw! - just because.
Of course, one can always earn a positive reputation, get knighted, earn a patron, find one's own secret source of vis. But we already have rules for that.
I'd much rather see rules that make it more obvious that early experience is different from late experience. (Variant House Rule: Subtract Age/20 (round down) from any experience point total other than Exposure, minimum 0. LRs do not help with this. But maybe reduce the penalty by one per pawn of vis spent. And maybe tweak the rule to let younger characters learn faster. And maybe apply this rule to immortal beings, but not familiars, who now tend to die with their magus.)
Anyway,
Ken