Scout/Ranger

[lared]

That's a bad idea. Spending a feat to gain a minor Skill bonus (+3ish on two Skills) is a huge waste of a feat.

Eh, reducing MAD is good. Even at just +3ish on two skills, it's effectively a double-Skill Focus feat, which is already ahead of the curve. The feat also scales as you level, as the scout is likely to continue to improve his DEX through one means or another. Most important, of course, is that you're improving the two skills that will most appreciably affect the survivability of the party (assuming you are, in fact, the party's designated detrapper, and further assuming you are playing in the sort of conventional campaign wherein deadly traps are an expected encounter for the party).

Again, another bad idea. Swift Hunter allows his Favored Enemy and Skirmish bonuses to progress, but only if he's taking levels of Ranger or Scout. Dipping into other classes will screw those bonuses, and Uncanny Trickster will only allow progression of one of them, and doesn't even provide full progression, and it has fewer hit points then a Ranger.

Ah, probably my mistake in interpreting how the PrC would interact with Swift Hunter, then, though I don't think it would be much of a stretch to suggest to your DM that the ability for ranger levels to now stack with scout levels for the purposes of Skirmish bonuses is a class feature that you've now gained. The "+1 Class Feature" thing is fraught with rules ambiguity in general.