Ha! "Kinnectivity." Called this sell-out right after you announced the name change from Newscast! :-P
Are you sure about the timing of Luke's character change? Maybe he has more than one change but he stops being a total douchebag when you first encounter the titular abyss. I'm already quite far past that point and the story isn't really making efforts to get towards any ending, it feels more like I'm in the middle of the main section of the story.
Yeah, I think they got the timing wrong. I'd say it's closer to a third/half of the way through, maybe less.
While we're on the subject of Abyss, I do have several criticisms of the game. I hate the frequency of encounters on the World Map, and how slow it is to trudge from place to place. The plot is also something of a mess, especially when it comes to your enemies' decisions. I've played enough Tales games to not expect Kaiser Soze, but it's not much fun to beat villains with the ingenuinty of a coked-up terrier.
Still, fun game, above average JRPG, and the cast is mostly cool, Anise excepted. I'm with them on the skits though: unskippable and completely silent is not a good way to go!