One of the problems with combat skills is a matter of optimization. There are a *lot* of pertinent combat skills - Agility, Reflexes, Strength, and the Earth ring as a whole are all pertinent. We're in a land of absurd combat monsters. We can make moderate improvements to our combat abilities, cranking us up from "weak for a starting bushi" to "low-to-mid-ranked combatant" but it will take essentially all of our exp to do. I do not believe that anyone is seriously suggesting this. The levels of investment we *are* considering, however, apply only within a fairly small band. It's enough to push us from "That one enraged Lion is a real threat to life and limb" to "we can probably take him. Probably." It's not going to be enough to save us if, say, Daidoji Chen decides that we have to die and he's willing to do some shady stuff to make it happen - Daidoji Chen is just too far above anything we could reasonably hope to accomplish. Similarly, it's not going to matter against random bandit trash because we can *already* take random bandit trash. L5R is a game where combat is kind of a big deal overall, which means that it has high granularity, and getting particularly good at it is *expensive*.
Now, we happen to know that in this *particular* game, combat isn't going to be as much of a feature. (Note that this contrasts with Glory of the Emerald Empire, where the theme is constantly shifting, putting Sousuke in situations he's not really prepared for.) So the challenges we face are mostly noncombat, and noncombat prowess is, by and large, cheaper for the same improvement in mastery as combat prowess. On the one side, we could get Reflexes to 4 and kenjutsu to 3. That would be a notable, useful improvement in combat skill that would move us from a step below the majority of our peers to a step above, and let us win a fair number of spars against Matsu bushi of our year group. For two more points than that, we could get Awareness to 4, Perception to 3, and investigation to 3 - significantly improving our ability to dig into the Crane issue, while also improving our ability to interact in court, influence people, and notice things in general.
Combat ability isn't just relatively low-importance. It's *expensive*.
Now, of course, if AkodoMatsu rageboy *does* live, the calculation changes - as not only do we have a much increased chance of seeing violence in both the near and moderate future, but our relationship to our rough peer group will be exactly the point on the combat effectiveness scale we care most about.
You do make many fair points and I suppose that the only real argument for raising Kenjutsu 3, should Ginwei die, is that this is L5R and I don't expect this'll be the last time we need to pick up our katana to save our skin so let's call it argumentum ad scribo. (This is entirely tongue in cheek and I'll happily concede we're not likely to need it.)
