I was setting up Sion designs, first to use more equipment than just a sword and also to use traits that would benefit a specific champion path, however I discovered some limitations.

First, they can't be upgraded with new equipment after gaining an armor trait. They have to be born with it, but the trait is still available at level up even if they were born with it.

Second, I had picked traits that were in the champion trait tree so I could possibly get to other traits earlier. Like starting them off with Reap so I could take Reap II as an early level up even though it's far down the trait tree. It doesn't work that way though. Reap, ironskin, precision, fast, and any other trait that appears to be shared by regular units and champions are actually different versions and will stack with each other.

The first part I'll just live with, but is there a way to change the second one? Can I just change the unit designer to use the champion version of these traits and have Sion (henchmen) get the mid-trait tree traits, or are the trained unit traits and champion traits totally separate and/or separate for a reason?