Yes, you understood me correctly. With a pot 9 player you are limited with the Skills. If you build a SF you have to choose a specialization for him. It's a small diference we are talking about here. You can say 16 is enough as the highest skill and use the time for the other ones. So he will be more balanced. But from an NT view I would recommend at least 17 in the main skills. So def it would be ID, OD and SB and off JS, DR, IS and JR. With this your player will be around the same level as his opponent.
Theoretically... A MVP can reach all Skills at 15... But noone did this until now. ;)