You know, to be an officer ranked character in the Star Army, you need all seven of those skills dedicated to basic + history, law, and speaking? Not even enough room in seven skills to have specific occupational skills from the get-go. I've never really minded because you can pick up skills for your character through experience pretty quickly and no one cares anyway.
I had to do this with my first non-mustang character and, though she has gained more "fun" skills in RP, her wiki page does look a little sparse. For a subsequent character, I just didn't list any skills at all and included a few hobbies in her personality/history.
Your proposal is a fine fix, but another alternative might be: "All occupational skills are free then you get to have 3 personal skills not tied to your character's military profession."
At the end of the day I don't think anyone really holds anyone else to the "seven skills" standard unless some new player is dumping like 20 deep knowledge areas into their Santo Hei.