One thing to keep in mind that not every dice pool of 12 is equal. If you make low threshold open tests, 12 dice is plenty. If you are rolling dice in an opposed test with potential negative modifiers, don't get me wrong, 12 dice is still good, but it may not succeed regularly even against low-threat opposition such a thugs or street gangers. Fortunately, these dice pools also tend to be ones with more potential positive modifiers, too.
For melee or firearms, for example, you can improve your Agility with muscle toner or the adept Agility boost power, get a reflex recorder for that skill, get improved ability for that skill, get a smartlink, or get a weapon focus. Not an exhaustive list, but you get the idea. For magical ability, the main two things are mentor spirit bonuses and foci.
It's hard to get a starting character at the "sweet spot", where they are good at their main specialties but not clueless outside of that area. Characters don't have a set power level, just a continuum from generalist to specialist. And skills can vary in importance a lot in a campaign. Even looking at the archetypes - in some campaigns, the street samurai would face a lot of problems, defaulting to two dice for perception checks and only rolling one die for most social skill checks (and he can't even try to con anyone). The bounty hunter, on the other hand, would do a lot better with all of the skills that he has. In another campaign, though, the street samurai would be blowing away the opposition with his high dice pools, while the bounty hunter, who is slightly better than the average ganger in combat, would get chewed up by the Ares HTR team.
