My characters are usually just made after a concept, and then their sheet is built to accomodate that. If I'm going for a fighter pilot? I'll put their points into what makes sense. Fighter pilots typically have awesome reaction times (if they live long enough to talk about it) so, I jack that up. Then, I usually look at published NPCs for a system to see what they have and stat accordingly. I wanted to have a stand out veteran pilot in a starwars game, so I looked at the typical rebel pilot NPC, and added 1d to thier piloting stat. That sort of thing.
I've gone back and forth on my opinion on 'well rounded' vs 'specialist' characters on mushes. I find it frustrating to GM for specialists who are all combat specialists, but it's also frustrating when the lone guard with book published stats mops the floor with 4 PCs because they're so generalized and well rounded, that they're playing basic citizens rather than heroes. I'm currently of the mind that specialized heroes with one extra focus are more fun, my veteran rebel pilot also has streetwise jacked up after working the mercenary pilot/smuggler circuit for a few years.
For backgrounds, I typically hate backgrounds beyond a 2 sentence concept. If background stuff comes up, I'll make it up during play, but I don't think I've ever had my required CG background stuff being used by a GM as a source of fun, in my experience, it's pretty much always just a lame exercise to get through CG. My most background developed character is Salvae on Ares, and 90% of his background is post CG.
