I have just something to add to abilities.
80 is way to much in my opinion. I don't read anything in the book that a
regent has to have high abilities. What about 60 and +3 to main ability and
+1 to other (That way ftr's have high str's and wizards have high int). Then
they can train and raise the abilities. Not every regent is a nice,
charismatic, wise, intelligent,dexteritous,strong runner of many marathons?
The advancing of intelligence and such comes through play. Players learn
through experience. No way is a 1st level character going to know all the
angles of a situation while a 10th level guy will. That is why exp is used.
There are also age tables that affect player's stats in the PHB.

Most experience comes from the way the Player changes his actions. I played
in a group that was very different in experience recently. Some had only
played RPGS 1 to 3 years while others had 14 to 20 years of experience. As
well played it was noticeable how the Players reacted different to different
situations. The less experienced tended to handle everything with a sword
and rushed into most things, while the more experienced conversed with
villains and came up with detailed plans of events. The mix added to the
Role-playing since the DM wisely had the more experienced players play older
PC's. Truly the numbers mean little. Regents with low stats can train their
Proficiencies, or pass of the jobs to lts. It is easy to walk around with a
16 Cha, but try ruling with a 9 or 7 cha... That's hard, and any Regent who
can survive it gains so much more by way of wits and actual experience in
handling things then the 16 Cha.

I am a firm believer that Attributes do not make the character, but
Experience does. Think back to your first "test" of the rules where you
devised an excellent way to use a thief ability that you know no one has
thought of before you. Being inexperienced as you were, (especially if your
first GM was very experienced like mine was) you tried it out and forgot to
think about one of the factors...oops... your character really messed up and
he now has to talk himself out of being in the king's treasury and how those
bars were loosened. If he survives the PC gets experience, but even if he
doesn't the PLAYER gets experience and learns from the mistakes of that
character and uses him on a newer one.

::Whew:: didn't know I was gonna go off ranting ... those are my thoughts.