I'm not a big fan of weapon-specific talents and here's why:
Hypothetical A: Two equally capable heroes, Gladius the swordsman and Hastatus the spearman, are captured by the villains, who take away their sword and spear respectively. When the heroes escape, they have to fight their way out with spears taken from defeated guards.
- Case A1: Gladius is just as good as Hastatus.
- Case A2: Gladius is not quite as good as Hastatus.
- Case A3: Gladius is nowhere near as good as Hastatus.
Hypothetical B: Ericius is a simple character design with one weapon, a spatha, used under all circumstances. Vulpes is modelled after a professional warrior of the Greek, Roman or Viking period and carries a wide variety of weapons: a javelin he throws before contact, a spear for the initial contact, a shield, a spatha-like sword for whacking people over the shields, a short stabby sword for between the shields, a dagger for just in case, etc.
- Case B1: Ericius and Vulpes are equally good at fighting with a spatha, Vulpes gains flexibility for nothing.
- Case B2: Ericius is a little better at fighting with a spatha, Vulpes only pays a modest cost for flexibility.
- Case B3: Vulpes has paid a fortune for flexibility, and is much less capable than Ericius.
For my taste, A2 and B2 are preferred from a role-playing point of view and probably also more realistic. I'd prefer to see a system where this is true.
Standard TFT is more toward the A3/B3 end of the spectrum. In addition, some GMs introduce higher levels of talents that are specific to particular weapons (Sword 3, etc.). These push the game even more toward the A3/B3 end of the spectrum. It's really expensive to buy the high levels in lots of different weapons so characters get strongly committed to their preferred weapon.
In a game I ran I introduced All Weapons as a cheap talent that reduced the -4 DX modifier for not having a weapon talent to -1 DX. (It had as a prerequisite having learnt some weapon talents, I think two points worth.) This was an attempt to push the game back to A2/B2. If anyone has any other thoughts on the subject, in particular what worked in real games, I'd like to hear them.