So, we've had a lot of talk about 'how to make MU's better' lately, and every time it comes up I can't help but think "Better for whom?"
See, while I agree with @Arkandel
game which mismanages the amount of progress you make for time unit can render progress irrelevant; if XPs fall from the skies like raindrops and everyone's special no one is. If progress is too slow and everyone wallows in the dirt then it doesn't matter. If progress is behind a wall your playstyle doesn't support (must play too many hours, run PrPs to justify expenditures, etc) then it might as well not exist. Etc.
and @Seraphim73's list above of what advancement constitutes, I also have to think ... some of these things are mutually incompatible. For instance, @Jim-Nanban wants things that he can fondle and do and whatever, but even he admits that certain playstyles lead to Charzilla. But then you also have it at the opposite end of the spectrum, where everyone is charzilla, so no one is, or everyone is a lowly peon, so nobody feels like they have any agency.
Now, I for one am not opposed to Charzillas, especially in the WoD games. Those Charzillas are the ones who typically end up as Prince or Primogen or Hierarch or Queen or <Manson>Stick your stupid slogan in.</Manson>. Are some of them terrible? Sure. But so are some of the ones in the fiction for the setting, so that's not out of the ordinary. I think that some healthy amount of Hierarchy is needed in these games that doesn't exist in many of them, currently. Everyone wants to do catchups and just-for-being-approved xp, and all I've ever seen it lead to is stagnation.
I think that, ultimately, rather than fixate on some medium between all of them, we should really just stick to one, and encourage others to make something else if it doesn't suit people's playstyles. While it might suck to feel that one game that your friends are having fun on doesn't work for you because it requires different hours or the RP is behind a wall you can't get over, it's probably important to keep in mind that not everyone can play in the same sandbox, either. Sometimes, you just need more diversity, and less amalgamation.