[kirbwarrior]

Well, reading over this thread and other ones, I've come to two conclusions;

Keep Contact as is, but give them a Wildcard skill instead of a single skill. That's practically an entire NPC character sheet right there.

Don't use anything of the Contact advantage. As long as an Ally is making those 1-40pts worth it, whatever the ally actually does doesn't matter. As a completely out-there example, Sahasrahla from A Link to the Past (a Zelda video game) is often throughout the game telepathically helping Link through information alone. He is a 'contact' in that he gives you information and stays out of harms way to help you more in the future. But he is also not just a repository of information but someone with a small amount of social clout, so he often helps you out behind the scenes. Built on maybe 75% of Link's value, he's just an Ally that happens to have not a single ability to help you in combat.