IMO skirmish is the kind of system I believe your experience points party should be...
Thats not to say I have a problem with skirmish but I just feel exp parties are very different to anything else.
After all, grinding the crap out of natalan or rapters etc doesn't do much to prepare you for the endgame style stuffs. The way you play your job to level in natalan is very different to the way you play your job at Chimera / Coin-Counter etc. Your brand new paladin who just dinged 50 in natalan and went straight to AV is going to have no clue about Coin-Counter for example.
Skirmish you could say is a mini training ground for things like Coin-Counter, Buffalo, Ogre etc. Take your party to skirmish and your brand new level 50 paladin who goes to AV is likely to have a much better idea what to expect from Coin-Counter.
This all kind of falls with what I said ages ago. The grind to 50 shouldn't just be an obstacle, It should be about learning your jobs/roles etc. You could argue that they dont take long to learn but given that 9/10 shouts for anything call for experienced people only it goes to highlight the problem I think.
If skirmish were you're typical exp style party you would at least have some experience with boss type mobs.
