Speed is sort of a weird thing that won't be established until I get to the body part of the countdown. Right now it'll depend on strength + agility, but really it should also depend on physical dimensions as well. That can kind of be implied by strength + agility, but to get good description paragraphs based on appearance, the atts + one size variable aren't sufficient. In a way this is a start of the custom attributes, as they'd depend on the creatures. For creatures without extra appearance attributes (I won't have spend time coming up with them for sharks and so on, most likely, not for a long while anyway), speed will probably depend on strength and agility equally.
Creativity isn't just for artwork really, but any form of creative endeavor. I think spatial sense might come up somewhat in the visual arts in addition to creative and the specific skills (eg painting/the existing dwarf craft skills). The "linguistic ability" attribute was meant to cover in part "artfulness with language" both in speech and writing in addition to ability to learn to speak and read additional languages. Writing a poem might use linguistic(att)+creativity(att)+poetry(sk), maybe, in addition to skill with the target language in general, in speech, and in the writing system, and depending on the sort of poem, other skills might also bring a minor benefit such as rhythm and some of the other musical skills. As long as you get enough feedback on why your poem sucks, you should get an idea of what's going into it, he he he.
Yeah, I don't really have anything for stuff like "paying attention" aside from the vague Spatial Sense att and Situational Awareness skill. Sort of a matter of which splits are needed again. I don't feel uncomfortable having a lot of things under those umbrellas though. Splitting the senses might be good, and that might lead to something like the aforementioned custom atts depending on which senses the creature has.
Having all strikes (not just punches) hit sensible locations is up on dev I think (Req230 is related, but the thing I'm thinking of might have been from Armok 1). It's already in, somewhat, but it's not very noticeable, as its just a weighting depending on the part type (stance parts are weighted 7 times less than upper body parts for example). Doing further refinements is Combat Arcish, and I'm not sure when it'll come up.
Out of curiosity, will we be able to hook up percussion cams to a waterflow, that we can create programmable hydropowered instruments (Similar to in the Book of Ingenious Devices?)
Only if there's a specific push toward that. It hasn't been on my list.
There is so much I want to ask about Toady and his plans for Martial arts, or lack thereof, but I am under the impression that it is either a secret or he is never really planning on developing it into that dramatic of a system.
The only plans I currently have are aligned more or less with what was planned and already implemented in Armok 1. On top of the existing skills, there'd be styles and paths within those styles as well as specific techniques, all of which have their uses/bonuses/minuses and you could become proficient in them through practice. In a magickish world, they could start to turn that way as you become very skilled. The non-magical parts are planned for the Combat Arc. It's mentioned in no more detail than what I've put here in Core73, and probably in the old armok notes.