Making Skill Choices
Solution 1:
There is no character choice that you can make which cannot be easily changed later on, except for the name and gender :)
- Skills and runes are unlocked as you level up; as you have correctly observed, you just select the active ones, not make permanent choices.
- Attribute points are given as you level up, and are consistent and not chosen or randomly allocated.
The only permanent choices you can make are item-related ones - if you salvage an item, for example, it's gone forever.
By the way, because of this, there is practically no reason to create two different characters of the same class if you just want to experiment with a different build - unless you want to experience the game again from the start as a new character, or want to play a different gender, or want to create a hardcore character.
Solution 2:
All skills and runes will be automatically unlocked when you level up. They are distributed in such a way that you unlock at least one rune every level, even at Level 60.
By the way, in the beginning stages of the beta of Diablo III, it used to be so that you had to find runes for skills as items, but they changed it to the way it is now because they noticed that quite often, there were meaningless level-ups when playing the game, since you gained nothing more than an increase in attributes.
Solution 3:
Just to add to the previous answers, the skill choices are not permanent.
However once you get further in the game you start gaining Nephalem Valor when ever you kill champion or rare packs. If you change your skill set up you lose all of your Nephalem Valor stacks.
Nephalem Valor stacks increase your Gold and Magic find.