Could agree any less.
In their committment to absolute realism of this game, the devs decided this skillset/character development was a complete fallacy. It made far more logical sense to spend their labor effort on making the save game feature as completely unrealistic as possible (aka a pain in the ass). Basically troll/punish players for DARING to stop playing the game when they want. How dare the player allow real life/real life emergency situations to invade Henry’s KCD universe? 
Anyhow, I’ve been griping about the blatant omission of this game feature dynamic. What’s the dev’s logic to wasting a game hour locking in Henry’s background as a naive, green, upper class peasant (Henry who was repeatedly discouraged from the martial arts by his smith father & his medieval caste society)? So the game’s MQ can brow beat you into immediately accepting a fighter/warrior/knight class build for the protagonist.
Which is an immediate and 100% irreversible decision for Henry for the rest of the game. Tried to logically have this lowborn peasant to stealthily flee Skalitz for Talberg on foot? NO SOUP FOR YOU. You’re immediately clobbered over the head and forced down a specific path the moment Skalitz gets sacked. You’d better believe EVERY SKILL Henry learns on the fly/on purpose from there on, is 100% realistic. Starting with the expert horsemanship he displayed in that flight scene —given the fact he had a riding skill of ZERO. Despite being wounded critically in the thigh AND failed to be unseated from his horse on impact. Despite the fact our peasant hero was wounded SEVERAL TIMES in route to Talberg. The only realism that happens during that whole scene is if you let Henry bleed out. Because it’s impossible for our boy Hal to fall from his horse otherwise…
What’s the whole point of being able to read if you can’t APPLY your knowledge to improving combat skills and/or survival? After a 1 v 20 Cuman murder spree, Henry should be able to rest for the night at a camp. And be able to use his smith knowlede to craft his own smith kit/crudely repair his armor (if out of smith kits). He should be able to shoe his horse if he has shoes. Besides reading a smith based book, Henry should be able to read other crafting skill books (fletchery to make his own bows, arrows and CROSSBOWS/LONGBOWS). Henry should’t be allowed to pick up any bow and become a master one shotter. Especially after several game hours practicing on target dummies.
Then there’s the lack of survival based books that would teach him to forage/survive on the road. All of these support and feed into his combat skill dynamic. Like the tavern based ones. These should add knowledge of how to smoke/process dried meat rations from raw game meat. Helpful when Henry is at one of those numerous, deserted campsites in the woods etc. etc
So yeah, WH really dropped the ball on how the realism dynamic failed to work here. Especially since the MQ forces Henry into a fighter/Knight role from day 1. And–as the OP has pointed out–makes no attempt to use his prior background/acqured reading skill to achieve this new role/society status that’s been forced on him.
