<snip>nor have I noticed any skill degrade, but I don't pay that close attention to the numbers to recall if I lost a % in one of the many skills.<snip>
Personally I have never seen skill degradation either.
<snip>I've also through experimentation found that you can't gain skill points in more then 4 skills per day<snip>
Have you systematically (and for a reasonably long amount of time), tested this on a recent version of the game by creating a weak-in-easy-to-skill-up-skills (swimming/skiing etc.) and consistently trying to skill up more than 3 or 4 skills in a single day?
If not, it is still possible (and in my opinion more likely), that there is no such "prevention mechanism" in the game but you simply run out of time (i.e.: date changes) after improving 3 skills and before 4th skill is also executed enough times to get a random-skill-increase in that one, too.
Without source code access, I am only speculating here. I am also thinking, there is no sane reason (that I can think of) to add such a ceiling as time itself is already a ceiling enough and a good enough ceiling as well, due to the
opportunity costI know the limit previously in the wiki for gains per day was 3 on some previous version, so I know the cap exists.
Well, if it was on the wiki, it probably was correct then. I did take a quick look at Skills page and was not able to see a limit. Also checked all edits, back to version 1 and could not find anything then either.
Of course, it could be on another page or on one of the alternative wikis.
Do you have any wiki link or idea, where on the wiki was it? Was it on the official wiki or another wiki?