Yeah, I've been guilty of wanting to add a mechanic here and there, where it wasn't really needed, too. Isn't always a bad thing, but sometimes it just doesn't work.
Something I thought about for Fate Core in the G+ group, but maybe it is useful for you here as well. It is essentially about zooming in on a single skill and expanding it to add fluff. Not sure how well it would work for DF, though.
Fate and the Fractal Skill
When the question of a way to model Shadowrun style hacking came up, I remembered that I was quite fond of how Shadowrun 4E handled it. Basically, you ended up with a character sheet for your computer (I believe it's called a "deck" there), with various skills (called "programs") for infiltrating, hiding, scanning, and so forth. I thought it would make sense to do the same to model it for Fate, but then it dawned to me, that you can do that to virtually any skill available.
But why would I? Well, to zoom in on the action. Say you are in an epic sword fight. Both characters will probably have their fighting skill high + a few stunts to work with, but they are both rolling on the same skill over and over again. Instead of doing that, we'll create a second character for both of them, but the skill list only consists of skills linked to fighting. "Hammer blow", "Disarm", "Feint" and the like, things that would be stunts on a regular character sheet are skills on this character sheet. The high concept for this "skill character" could be the school of fighting the character learned ("Fencing school of Aldera", "lessons of the street", "Barbarien bloodseeker" and so forth), while the trouble is a particular weakness in that style. Additional aspects describe what makes the style special. The skill character would get the same skill pyramid and refresh level as the character, and it would level up at the same rate.
And you can do that for virtually any skill that is the major part of the high concept. A wizard can have a skill character for his spells or elements or aspects of magic, depending on how your magic works. A thief could expand burglary for things like lockpicking and pickpocketing and sneaking. A wilderness character could manage his pet like that. Or the aforementioned hacker can expand his "electronic warfare".
Of course, a +1 on the skill character does not mean that the character is weak in that aspect, it just means that he is weaker in it than other characters of his overall skill. A +4 fighter still has +4 in fighting, but +4 fighter with +4 disarm is better at disarming than a +4 fighter + 1 disarm. The +4 skill on the skill character should probably be represented by an appropriate stunt on the main character sheet.
So now you can use those skill characters to zoom in on the action. In the example above, the two fighters clashing their swords together, they would no longer roll on a single skill, they would be able to use a broad spectrum of skills in order to try and find one that their opponent is weaker in than they are themself. For example, if both characters have an evading style in which they fight, "feint" might be their main skill. But one of them might have "disarm" at +3, while the other only has it at +1, so that would be a big advantage for the first guy.
Now when it comes to a fight between people of different specializations, there could be one of two things. Either the skills fit each other, like in an epic battle between a wizard and a fighter, so both will just use their skill character to fight and see which skills would fit to attack or defend those of the other. Or they absolutely don't fit, in which case you just use the standard skills and stunts on the main sheet.
I was thinking of compiling a secondary skill list for different skills, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm not sure if it is actually necessary, since those highly depend on the setting and characters you play, but it might be a good place to start.
