Do any of you GMs take the character sheets away from your players? If you do so, does that inspire creativity ?
I don't.
However, I once had the players design their character by telling me what their characters were good at. For each attribute, I asked them if their character was poor, average, fair, good, excellent...; and for each skill, if they were untrained, beginners, dilettantes, trained, journeymen,...
They had no limit, except for spell lists which I managed differently. They could say whatever they wanted.
Then, I wrote the numbers and they had their technical character. But a character was not a compromise between the players' wishes and a set number of DPs - it was exactly what they wished for.
And it was fine.
So, I did not hide the character sheets from the players. But the players were playing the character they wanted to play, not the character the rules allowed them to play. Which, in a way, is a bit similar to what you suggest, only it is planned beforehand.
I, however, once *played* in such a game (it was not RM, rather a BRP hack). It works as well. However, after a little while, you know what your character is good at and what he's not good at, and you tend to pick your fights when you can. Which is fine, because it is a natural reaction: if I'm bad at something, I will try to avoid doing it, unless circumstances force my hand or I want to serve as comic relief.