The current pirate I'm raising, I too kept all my weapons at an even level and used skill points sparingly. I think it worked pretty well. I tried to take the story quests slow, but it's hard lol. Now I'm at the point of maxing my pirate and weaps and it was all pretty easy except for staff.
I'm starting a new pirate, and will not do any story quests until all weapons are at least level 20. Of course I'm doing the doll quests, tp quests, etc. We'll see how it goes. I call it my backwards pirate. Grind first, quest later
