Synergies.

[WarBlade]

No, that's the beauty of it.  If Holy Shield gave Defiance a % damage reduction synergy, it would work whenever you were running that aura, not when HShield was up.  This would give 2hd weapon Defiants a reason to pump HShield, though not to use it.

Dumping 20 points into a Paladin skill is to nominate that skill for frequent use. Paladin characters simply won't have the points to throw away on purely passive synergies.

Not if the additional damage was personal to the Paladin and didn't get passed on, though.  :)

Yup. B) And that was one of the two key points that woke me up to the generator/recipient reason for not empowering cerain skills currently plaguing Paladin synergy options. You could apply the same or similar reasoning to Spirits and some Warcries, although Curses will always be lumbered with the effect (duration modifiers could still be valid).