Aquebman, you nailed it on the differences between 3-4e and DCC concerning feats. And yes, it's a very swingy and potentially gonzo game where anything can happen. If you like Vance or enjoy any of the other appendix N authors (outside of Tolkien), this system plays that way when it gets going.
Re: Initiative -- I totally agree with you on this, Vargr. Though I don't give a crap about the lucky roll and its application to weapon of choice thing. I mean, what's the point of having a Luck stat if there isn't both bad and good luck, right? Is weapon of choice a poor name? Sure, but it's the spirit of the thing and not the name that counts. Besides, if you haven't read through the DCC rulebook, I think you might be missing the ironic tone to a lot of these. It's a treat. I haven't had a reaction to popping open a rulebook like I did with DCC since I surreptitiously bought my first books from the local gamestore and smuggled them into my demon-fearing house at age 16, convinced that I'd acquired the greatest thing since sliced bread. (Yep, my rulebooks went right under the mattress with the girlie mags...
)All that said, d20 initiative doesn't float my boat, pbp or ftf. I find it to be the single biggest (and most disabling) difference between old school and new school gaming. D20 initiative tends to turn a party of individuals working together into a bunch of individuals playing Monopoly (you know how boring that gets after the third time round the board; and like Monoploy, the game can devolve into something like two people trying to steal the show from one another while everyone else watches a movie and eats doritos).
I would say that just about every other game mechanic builds off of this one decision. The beauty of DCC, to me, is that you can easily change this decision because the game is so rules light (try it with 4e if you ever want a migraine). My very first DCC houserule was to banish d20 initiative and go with d6 side-at-a-time straight from OD&D and Basic (more or less -- I prefer low roll goes first, which might be in Holmes if I remember). When necessary because of characters caught up in different corners of a combat, during those times it really matters who is doing what and when, I break out individual d6 initiative with mods to heighten the tension. All actions are declared before initiative is rolled.
So if you can't tell, I would put this one up for a vote because I think it would make the game run much more smoothly. Not only will it speed things up in the pbp format, it actually fits the DCC philosophy of the luck of the die much better than d20 init., imo. It's way easier to make two or three rolls for initiative (assuming you run it side at a time, or a couple more rolls than that during the funnel), decide who goes first, second, third, and then forget the darn initiative rolls to focus instead on action resolution, with no numbers to remember from round to round. It's so much more difficult to rememberr and track who goes when from round to round than it is to just roll the damn initiative dice again every round. It makes for anticipation as a party, and like Vargr says, it swings the tide of battle and keeps uncertainty and tension high. If you want to do individual initiative and add casting times, it's a simple fix to say a spell takes X segments to cast, where X is the spell level. Or you can stick with side at a time and go with the simple missiles, magic, movement, melee order of combat. Don't even have to worry about characters with multiple attacks because DCC has that covered with action dice.
Anywho, you be nice to poor Thurinor, now, Vargr. No retribution rolls!
And ragnboneshopper perfectly laid out what I was going to say before I did. 
My vote is to keep the possibility of negative luck scores applying to weapon of choice but use this list to name it what it is (and all the other lucky rolls too)...