For me, character set up is a huge part of games, therefore I like systems where you have to spend allot of time and thought mix and matching abilities (FFVII, FFT). I dislike any system that forces you to make permanent choices. At lv5 I have no idea what skills or stats I should be stacking towards, and if I later found that I made a poor choice and am stuck with it, I'm far more likely to just stop playing.

To sum it up I would say I'm a fan of the 'learn everything but equip few' philosophy, where you can learn all of the abilities in the game, but are severely limited in what you can currently have active. As for abilities specific to characters, although I like this in theory, I dislike more when I have to chose between characters I like as characters, and characters who's stats fit my playstyle.