The starting seven is, though. Are they? Would seem like the only current logical thing to do with the fine-tuning of their skills when embarking and all that.
It is still on the drawing board as far as what form the start scenarios and "starting seven" are going to take, but it is possible they'll eventually be pulled from existing populations (if available).
EDIT: Relevant Quote:
Quote from: finka What are the obstacles to just assembling the starting seven dwarves as if they were a migrant wave (and possibly replacing their skills)?
From a design perspective, location and skill replacements are pretty much the only obstacles. Roughly, you're either going to be drawing dwarves from all over the world, which is weird, or you'll have a limited selection of skills available from your area, or you'll be mind-wiping people that have histories (which makes choosing historical figures half-pointless and strange). Personally speaking, I'd prefer to choose dwarves from some locality with some start scenario explaining what's going on and dealing with having a non-perfect skill mix, with the option to elevate non-historical dwarves to fill gaps.
In the end, it's not exactly a huge problem, if people don't mind wiping skills it's not a hard thing to do, and now that we have historical migrants in general, this is an avenue that has opened up.