There you go. It's a roleplaying game. Put your roleplaying hat on.
Pretty much this. Yes the rules are a bit vague at times and some things may be a bit off, but the "Why can't you play as X?" "No conscription?" etc. talk doesn't make much sense to me. The lifepath generation gives you all the tools you need. As a referee you can say "Oh by the way you can play whoever, just talk me through your lifepath choices" well the referee should probably say that in any case, to get a feel of the characters. The referee can say "Okay so you picked Sweden (or whatever), males are expected to serve a term in conscription (you can even have a set term on 1 year or however long for this)" then the player knows or can go "Oh my character is a draft dodger" okay, that's that. This seems to be entering the territory of "Why don't the rules say how I'm supposed to describe x or y in the game?" (and oddly enough there are actually sections in the manual to help out with this). It's a role playing game, it gives you the tools to run the game, the background, choices and story are supposed to come from the interaction between the GM and players. I don't see why the lifepath section is any different.
So in 8 years of education I learned a grand total of Rank C in Persuasion and Recon??? Meanwhile my buddy rolled several 1s and 2s and had a Tanker character who was badass with 6 terms in almost the same amount of time. Sure there should be some amount of variation on our life paths but a broken character (or worthless) really isn't fun.
I know a guy that has 2 or 3 college degrees, runs their own business and lectures in a university. One of his former classmates dropped out of college and has been driving a cab for 6 or more years.
The lifepath system in my opinion very well reflects the reality of different people having different abilities, willpower, motivation etc. If you don't like your deadbeat character, roll up a new one. But it's a role playing game, not all characters (if any, really) are supposed to be super heroes.