The way they are mentioning the certs, kinda has me on alert... "if not thousands"? Dude... how many certs could you have? And after that, how many certs are you adding that are completely idiotic... I mean, certs that lower the cone of fire? I'm assuming that's just an accuracy advancement. I find that cheap, CHEAP, EXTREMELY CHEAP. This is an FPS in it's core, not fucking preschool. If I wanted all these skills and trinkets that lower cool downs or make my accuracy better, i'd play an MMORPG. It just sounds like they are honestly looking too deep into it, trying to make this game really in-depth to character development, but I see the bad, what might and most likely will happen... I don't like it very much.
A better idea would be to add things as such as "merits", BUT unlike the merit system in PS1, depending on the merit, the bonus. Being so you don't just pick it up, hell no, you gotta go for it, a marksman merit for [Insert weapon name] granting tighter COF achieved by killing said number of enemies, provides [%] tighter COF depending on difficulty rating of said achievement.
Now, then we start feeling like we achieved our bonuses, not just picked them from a litter. SMED, you asshole, I hope you read this fuck ass response to your fuck ass cert system!