During the first beta a lot of people argued that you should be able to upgrade skills while your Demigod is dead. I still think it's a good idea, as it would give you something to do. However, if that's not going to happen, then could we at least have the text descriptions of the skills available while we're dead?
On a similar vein, I'd quite like shopping to be a death experience, but would happily settle for merely being able to look through the descriptions of the available items.