[Gimli]

I like Valk to Fighter as well, I have done it a couple of times - I would wait until level 15 so she'd get the Portal spell before I switched. There are also a few polearms (Dread Spear for example) that give +20 to the polearm skill, so eventually the +25 Valk bonus starts getting wasted by the 125 skill cap. Basically if you want more melee damage from the Valk and are satisfied she has enough preist skill there's not much downside to switching over to fighter, and the beserk attack option is a huge melee upside.

For casters, I started liking the idea of having 2 bishops and have each work on 2 schools of magic. So for example have one who handles Alchemy and Psionics. Then I would pick which of those 2 schools he'd be better with and start him with one level of that class (will make him alot less casting-challenged than a 1st level bishop); then switch to Bishop and go for 18 levels; then switch back to the class he started as (picking back up that +25 to the realm skill as well).