I did not know Barehanded granted a Monk's Strength O.o
I did know that some menu commands (notably !Black and I think !White) grant the original class's Magic, so I guess it's only natural.

But yeah, mastering the Monk immediatly gets your Freelancer's Strength and Vitality as high as it can be, and mastering Thief does the same to his Speed. At that point Freelancer is just stupidly powerful, especially once you get to mastering other classes as well.