I like how, in most ways, a hearthling evolves really naturally from knowing zero about the world, so it's jarring to have abilities like "sewing" and "smithing" available (and incrementable!) before your hearthling has even conceived of those things as possible. IMO, only display those abilities that you have the prereqs for.
This would help noobs, as well, since early on the only skills you really want are exploration, survival, and maybe some unarmed - but these three abilities are at random positions in a pretty intimidating list. A noob might see it as a class system and think "I want to be a smith!" and waste all his LP on raising that.