Skillwires, Viable character option? Options

[Jason Farlander]

I realized the other night that I have not ever had a player use skillwires. It seemed to me, especially with things like optimization and DIMAP and chipjack expert drivers, that a skillwired character would not only be a lot of fun to play (providing a whole new meaning to the saying "I know everything"), but would also hold up rather well against other sorts of archetypal characters.

So, to verify my assumptions, I went about making one. After playing with it for a while, I realized that there was a discrepancy between my understanding of the wording in the BBB and the CC. My current understanding is that, the term "Max Rating" refers to the sum total of all simultaneously running chips. As such, following, the formula for skillwire system cost:

:nuyen: = (max rating) X (max total MP) X 500

A system that would allow you to run 2 rating 5 activesofts simultaneously would cost:

10 X 150 X 500 = 750,000 :nuyen:

Assuming every single chip you buy is also optimized (as per the CC option), that could be 375,000 :nuyen: (with the tradeoff of doubling chip cost)...
but anyway... I suppose I should ask my questions.

1) Is my understanding of the cost calculation currently correct? (check out that alliteration!)

2) How many skills is it really reasonable to expect to use simultaneously?

3) Would switching out softs be a free action (assuming, perhaps, either a 4-slot chipjack or that a number of softs are in headware memory)? "Activate cyberware" is a free action, but the description of what "activate cyberware actually" means is a bit different than this.

4) Has anyone ever played with a skillwired character and found it to be both fun and worth the cost?