I understand there's more to it and I appreciate people's insights. However before somebody can walk or run they need to learn how to crawl or, for this example, understand how the general bonuses work before applying synergy to individual circumstances.
Everyone who has replied seriously has been helpful but, before I can think about how something would work for a specific character or scenario, I need to ensure I'm working with a decent grasp of the basics.
This is, afterall, an over twenty year old game (with all the changes that time span implies) I've never tried until recently with tons of outdated guides and information out there and differences in rule sets for the different groups of people running servers and somebody can go down the wrong path or be misled quite easily if they don't ask. Perhaps a stat is like with LOTRO where one stat is a poor choice for nearly everyone but good with one class (eg Beornings). I won't know that until I ask.
It's certainly not a slight on any of the help offered; I appreciate all the insight. I'm just working on making sure I grasp the general fundamentals before moving onto the specifics.