I never in my life expected so much opposition to this. Surplus is a great idea. It's a wonderful, creative alternative to steep experience curves. If you play infrequently, you'll either never encounter it, or rarely hit above 10%. It's one of the few GOOD ideas they've had that I do not wish to see go away.

I've been affected by it quite severely. Going from 49 to 50 with 40% (and later 50%) penalty was harsh. The system did what it was meant to: It made it hard for me to go from 46 to 50 in a week, as well it should! Which is exactly what any other game would do, except casual players need to put in less hours to do it than I had to, which is only a good thing for those with limited play time. Having choices is never a bad thing, and surplus gives you an option as to how fast you want to level, instead of saddling everyone (casual or hardcore) with the same steep experience curve. If you want to go from 46 to 50 in a week like I did, you're going to put in some serious grind hours because that surplus is gonna suck. If you don't like slow leveling, take your time or switch to another class.

With the SP system as it is now, stop looking at surplus as a penalty and start looking at it as "normal" SP. Without surplus, SP goes VERY fast, but you will also hit that 10% penalty very fast too.