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Passive skills are good. If you do things the right way when you make your combat training to level up skills a lot more entertaining then finding something that can't kill you and going for a drink while you hammer away at it. When making skilling more immersive you can even consider the conditions of the fight to determine the amount of skill gained. Casting a spell at a foe in the distance would provide less of a skill gain then timing the spell perfectly to land just as your opponent attacked. Skills with different weapons would increase faster following blocks and parrys as you become more accustomed to flowing between attacks.

I thought the old skill system in WoW was promising (back when mages had to level ice magic) but the problem with that system was that it didn't give reward when it was increased it rather punished you if you didn't keep up. It wasn't meant for customizing your character. What I would like to try is something like the 300 Skill Point system but where the spell ranks are unlocked at the equivalent number of points to the level they could be purchased. Then those spells would in turn have a skill bar which adds to the power and speed of the spells. By using spells you gain skill in both the spell and the tree in which it belongs. I wanted to avoid this word but if you "balance" the spells to cater to playstyles rather then just basic categories you can let the player become more adept at what they like to do and reward them for it.

Even trying to come up with basic spells/skills that are unique is hard, trying to make them all synergistic and descendent from each other is a nightmare. Thrice as hard is presenting this information in a simple enough way so people can have fun customizing the hell out of their characters.