I have not played Rift, and I probably never will.

The only comment that I can make about the game is that their system seems to be a little too complex from a balancing stand point. While not impossible, the wide array of options and limitation on control will make balancing highly difficult.

More so than balancing, the system just doesn't seem as one that is easy towards new players. After a specific point within a talent tree, you are no longer gaining DPS talents, but instead are picking up utility talents in order to unlock the higher level abilities. So long as they can find a balancing between the damage of the higher investment abilities and only going X into one tree and then splitting points between two other trees to pick up specific DPS increasing talents; balancing won't be an issue. And you would then have a system wherein a player's investment into the game won't drastically impact their usefulness. Meaning that if they don't spend vast amounts of time reading theorycrafting and guides, they could theoretically just toss all their points into one tree or split their points up and still be remotely viable. That's an excessively tall order though, especially given the vast amounts of choices in the game.