Nah, no malice between the two of us, it was all very cordial. Being the GM, he's just more concerned with a more liberal interpretation of rules wreaking havoc on game balance during combat encounters. So I guess he just went the other extreme and took to the rule as they're written with no room for flexibility. This led to a weird situation during our first session where my telekinetic mentalist character can't use his powers to unbend the metal bars that's holding his team-mates captive. We still managed to resolve the in-game situation but decided to get some outside opinion on the matter - hence why I posted here.
On a related note, is balance a big concern in this game? I got into RPGs quite recently and was taken with the impression that players should be encouraged to create whatever kind of character they feel like and should be allowed to feel great about their characters being awesome at what they do. The GM on the other hand should be more concerned about creating dramatic moments and finding ways to challenge characters. For example, a PC may be great at combat, then as a challenge, maybe separate him from the rest of the party and throw a really strong villain (or a whole bunch of them) at him. Or maybe throw him into social situations where he isn't very good at. The balance part of the game are already built into the system and, in this game especially, items that could potentially be too powerful are highlighted for review. What are your thoughts?