I like the fact that altruism points should be spent on other players. At the end of the second session, no-one had used Deadening or Lucidity, so there was no need to spend them on oneself.
The mechanic for giving other people points needs a little more intrigue sewn into it. In most friendly groups, the players will pool all the spendable points together and then see who they can improve with them. The optimum build will be found this way and chances are, all the characters will become a sort of medium-level build. Everyone is too polite to say "I WANT MY RANGE TO BE 8, GIVE ME ALL 16 AP".
To solve the problem of niceness, last night we trialed secret applying. I gave 3 or 4 points to and then each player and each made a case for what they wanted to improve and how much it would cost. The players then wrote down secretly who would get their points. The GM totals them up and hands them out. It would have been better if I hadn't read them out 1-by-1, which makes it sort of obvious if you're a player who has give one point to each other (sorry, Byrn).
Still not sure this is the best answer to giving other people points.