Yasha,
As a further comment on the "inexperienced clergy are at a disadvantage"
thing, remember as well that if they are NPCs, they have no ranks
anyway. If a parish priest is supposed to be able to cast blessings from
the book, then he can. He doesn't have a 1W or more in his Abiding Book
score, because he doesn't have any rankings. That 1W is purely a
PC-construct and story logic. Basically, if solving problems with magic
is going to be important for you, then you should have put some points
into it.
LC