In V1.43 and the experimental versions, a basher who is a climber as well is displayed as CLIMBER when hovering the cursor over him. I suggest changing that and describe him as a BASHER instead. Similarly for any other such conflect between non-permanent skills and permanent skills.
Reason:
The current behavior is more useful if there are several lemmings using one non-permanent skill and one of them has a permanent skill. The suggested behavior on the other hand would be more useful if there is a bunch of lemmings with a permanent skill and one of them uses a non-permanent skill. Of these two situations, I deem the second case more common. So we should try to make selecting the correct lemming easier in this situation, even if other ways to point out selected lemmings (http://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2712.0) will (perhaps) be implemented in addition to that.
An other reason for the current behavior in V1.43 is to notify the player about the existance of a lemming with permanent skills. But as such lemmings get recolored in the experimental versions (and this recoloring got positive feedback up to now, so will likely stay), this is no longer needed.
Do these arguments make any sense or am I missing something?
Makes sense to me. :)
One thing to be aware of is that the inverted colors may not always make a permskill lemming visible; especially if in a large crowd where other lemmings might be drawn over him. One possible fix is to draw such lemmings last, so they appear on top; I don't know how people would feel about this though.
This seems like the best way to do it. I usually look for the BASHER/DIGGER/MINER text when assigning new skills to those, so it gets confusing when they show up as CLIMBER/FLOATER/ATHLETE instead.