I will be wiping my own character at launch because I want to start fresh. That being said I think it's fine to keep the battle skill lvls for those who want to. Mainly because unlike other games this one kept its servers open all the time during testing. Most of the time in alphas/betas they invite selected players to come in and test the game at specific times and with specific builds for the game here and there through out a couple of years. I think Eric and company are making the right choice considering how they decided to run their alpha/beta.