Discussion: Profession (astrology) or Knowledge (astrology)

I've been doing some research into the approaches to this that have been taken so far, and I have to say that I find most all of them to be eminently dissatisfying.

Dragon Magazine

The only "official" work that I've seen done on this topic by WotC was in Dragon Magazine #340. They presented the skill Profession (astrology), as well as a series of monster themed generic constellations with three "birth star attributes" that were accessible through feats, the first of which must be taken at first level.

The monster themed constellations are things like the "Sign of the Beholder" and the "Sign of the Ettin", etc. Each sign has an "optimal career", "Luck Action", and a "Birth Stone". Each of these benefits are accessible with an individual feat. Ex, with the "startouched feat", only accessible at first level, a player could, depending on his sign, gain a permanent +2 on Handle Animal checks. If he takes the "starborn feat", he gains a permanent +2 on Heal checks, and if he finally takes the "starblessed feat", he gains a permanent +2 on Fort saves against poison and disease.

As you can see from the above, these feat benefits are colossally awful. Why would you take a feat, especially your first level feat, to get a +2 to one skill that a stupid monster sign determines for you when you could alternatively take one of the better Realms regional feats, one of the better general feats, or even a stupid +2/+2 to two skills feats like "Investigator".

Additionally, the use indicated by the Profession (astrologer) skill is that a player with it could make a check (which takes 1d4 hours, btw), and get to roll two d12's on a pair of tables, and as a result, get a +1 to some specific action for that day, like attacks of opportunity or saves against petrification, and -1 to some specific action, like charisma based skills with members of the opposite sex, etc. There is no real benefit to taking multiple ranks in it unless you want to make more money doing it as a career...

Solution

This is really it for official or unofficial workups that I've found, and for the most part, it's basically a waste of time.

There are some really good resources out there for simply "modeling" your character's horoscope and astrological profile in the Realms based on age, month born, gender, etc, but they are purely flavor elements (not that there's anything wrong with pure flavor, I like that), but to add rules or game benefits to it is seemingly very problematic.

Anyone have any other sources to look at? Care to input? (I know this mostly affects Ben's character, who had to take Profession (astrologer) for his eventual prestige class).

I have nothing to add to the research. I guess I'll take the ranks I need and that's it. Funny, how in a world where magic turns the world into your easel that Astrology is just as hokey there as it here. But then, I think I may have already used the analogy. Sorry, just came to mind again.