Sounds like a fun change, the class you use will actually matter. Currently any well equipped character can pull 3k+ damage a turn with cc in an aoe, often times healing themselves at least 500 in the process, which is obviously not the way the game should work. If I was a dev I'd have serious problems with this too, you create all these spells and people only use them when the monsters are out of range. Change makes sense, and I'm all for being able to use different weapons on the fly without massive spell point investment. People will adapt, clearly not the end of the world as some people make it out to be.
On a different note, no crit fails and universal weapon skill just made cursed blord sword and scythe look mighty good to me. Whip out those 3ap cawwots as a bonus. :)