Ping is fine, I did it in my house so I could time it easily. So monsters didn't affect it any either.
I much prefer it this way, I like small bonuses because it makes for much better balance between templates and also makes player decisions more the focus rather than game mechanics for success. If only all things were this way in UO.
Right now, since I will not build uber templates just because the game tells me I have to, since I resent unbalanced uberness in my games, I am having a lot of trouble finding a success with my choices. I hope that will be fixed at some point in the near future, because new players will only leave when they constantly find out the same thing. It's not good for UO to have 2 or 3 set templates that dominate. It also removes a lot of fun potential. A big thing to me is that there could be lots of crossover in templates for a very, very wide variety of options and fun. But not with the big end bonuses we have today.
Sorry to start ranting, I was in a flow.