Fedifensor

Late to the party, but one thing that hasn’t been fully addressed is opportunity cost.  This most often comes up with attacks, but can also apply to other things, like skills.
 
The simple example is attacks.  Having a 9d6 Energy Blast for 45 points is one thing, paying an additional 45 points to get a 6d6 Armor Piercing Energy Blast is generally not worth the expenditure.  It certainly helps more than not having the power, but those 45 points could have been used for things far more important for your character.  Heck, if you don’t have to worry about campaign limits, you could have just bought another 9d6 of EB to make an 18d6 EB.  That’s why multipower exist, so a character can have diversity in attacks and other powers without that diversity being prohibitive in cost.
 
Now, let’s look at Package Deals.  Let’s say you have a campaign where everyone is a member of the Thieves’ Guild,  and you create a package deal that includes (among other things) Stealth and Forgery.  Is there an opportunity cost?  Well, for most campaigns, particularly one focused on thievery, everyone having Stealth is a good thing.  Points used to purchase Stealth are not wasted.  Now, how about Forgery?  As long as the characters work together, there is an opportunity cost for everyone taking Forgery.  Typically, you only need one character to roll Forgery (the one with the highest skill).  For the most part, having 5 characters with Forgery means that 4 of them have spent 3 points on a skill they will hardly ever use, and could have used those points to buy something more relevant to the character.  Giving a discount for taking a Package Deal is an incentive for people to take skills they otherwise wouldn’t take, because it is thematic to the characters and the game.
 
Sometimes an opportunity cost comes from inefficient game mechanics.  Most skills cost 3 pts, and are +1 for an additional two points.  However, unless it is a skill that you use all the time, it’s more efficient to buy skill levels, particularly Overall Skill Levels (perhaps the best value in the game).  It is true that the guy with Forgery 18- will have a significant advantage over the person with Forgery 12- and one Overall Level...though the Overall Level has many other uses.  However, what about the guy with 7 skills at 15-, versus the guy with 7 skills at 12- and 3 Overall Levels.  Save for the very, very rare situation where you are trying to use two or more skills simultaneously, the guy with the Overall Levels is equal to the high skill character...but also can put those skill levels in any other skill, or combat stats such as OCV, DCV, and/or damage.
 
Package Deals saving points isn’t a perfect system...but it’s not necessarily unbalanced, either.  It all depends on what method works best for the campaign and the players.