I have just learned that some of the later Might and Magic games have a skill called Learning which increases experience gains. I have a few questions on how the skill affects the gameplay:

1. When playing optimally, is it necessary to boost this skill as high as possible early, neglecting other skills, or is it weak enough to not be worth it?

2. Is it fun to play optimally with respect to the Learning skill, or does it make the game less fun? Does having the Learning skill in the game make it more fun, or less?

3. Is the Learning skill's existence a good thing, or would the games be better off without it?

The reason I have these questions is that another game called Lords of Xulima has a Learning skill that increases XP earned, and for various reasons (XP sources being finite in that game, for example), I think that skill is bad design for that particular game. On the other hand, the Disgaea series has a similar mechanic, and it works reasonably well there, but that series (especially in the post-game) is built around near-endless power leveling.

I have played this game many times. I get the skill to expert and forget about it. To boost early learning, I look for a scholar--- you get item identification and boost for experience. That has always been enough early. But around level 5 I do look to add to the skill.

Later Might and Magic games feature respawn, thus Learning skill isn't really game-breaking.

Pt. 1. Learning skill is usually used as dump skill - you just spend some spare skill points into it from time to time. Beginning of the game isn't the good time to invest into Learning - you will need to heavily invest into weapons and magic first.

Pt. 2. There are many ways to play this game. There are nearly no limits in this game - leveling isn't limited, skill points aren't limited, etc. Eventually you will be able to max out all available skills if you really want to.

Pt. 3. Having Learning skill adds to the depth of MM games, which is a good thing.

1. No, it's not worth neglecting anything for. Get 1 skill point for everybody when you can, since it only costs gold for the first point, and starts at a 10% bonus. But beyond that, just raise it whenever. I don't even bother going past 1 skill point unless they can get Expert or higher.

2. I don't think it's that significant. I suppose you could have a character start outleveling others at really high skill levels (like Master).

3. It's fine. I don't think it really outbalances the game like it seems it might. If there weren't many levels, and the benefits between each level were huge, then maybe it would be a bit wonky.

Buy it early, but don't bother leveling it until you've got certain other core skills in place (expert Air magic for me, for example). The biggest boost per amount of investment comes from learning the skill (as MadOverlord pointed out, total of 10%), with a 9% base increase while each rank only grants an additional 1% increase (the value for ranks is is increased by mastery levels). After my main core skills are out of the way, I'll push Learning up to whatever level I plan to reach and then leave it for the rest of the game. Get it early for the extra experience, but you can do fine without it.

A difference of a few levels isn't a massive deal in these games. I usually buy the skill, rank it up, and then forget it. I'll typically take on an Instructor and either a Teacher or a Scholar as soon as I can afford the gold loss, and then I let experience gain take care of itself.

I think the Learning skill is fine as is. In MM7 and MM8, it bugs me a bit that not everyone can GM it, but that's only because I like to have experience and levels pretty even across my party.