Thank you to everyone who's replied. Particularly to voydangel for the citation. I think I found the answer to the second half of my question.
The total hits scored on any test are limited to no more than the character’s
skill rating x 2.
Given that this is an optional rule, I don't think I'm going to roll with it.
I tried using that one for a while in my game because I noticed a trend with players only upping stats till they were maxed and then going back to look at skills as a secondary option. I also like the idea of those skill charts showing the "example person" for each skill level to mean something... since by RAW 1-6 (or 7) really doesn't scale well when you can get large swings in attribute dice. I figured that if hits were capped in relation to skill level, those charts became a lot more believable.
The big problem came in, like you said with defaulting and low skills. For a while I played with dropping the -1 for defaulting and capping hits at 2, but eventually I just got rid of the rule completely. I really wish I could find something similar or a way to make it work with low skilled / defaulting PCs.