I was thinking about the favored class alternative a human bard gets:
Add one spell known from the bard spell list. This spell must be at least one level below the highest spell level the bard can cast.
At first that seems pretty cool, bards have a very limited number of spells, so getting more of them is always good right? Also there's not really any other way that I know to increase spells known for a bard.
But you can't get any for the highest level, so for the first three level all you can take are cantrips, and then first level spells when you're level 4-6 etc.
Of course it makes you alot more vesatile, since you know alot more spells.
Also at level 4 you only know 4 first-level, and at level 6 its still 4, so getting an aditional 3 almost doubles your 1st level spells known at this level.
However you're also limited by how many spells you can actually cast. What good are 9 known spells if you can only cast them 4 times/day?
But does it really beat taking the skillpoints?
For cantrips I don't think so, there just not that many cantrips in the first place, much less useful ones. But after that?
The answer to this one really depends how many skills you really need for your Bard. If you're hurting over one skill point, then the one skill point really won't be that much of a difference because you're likely hurting with that skill point as well.
The extra spells improve the bard's versatility which fully in the spirit of a bard. In short, Yes the extra spell helps out immensely. Especially with the new cantrips they added. :)
Wait, they added new cantrips? With UM?
Because in the SRD they don't show up, except 3 from APG all are core, and I wouldn't call APG "new" anymore.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/spell-lists-and-domains/spell-lists---bard
Also checked the wizard cantrips, they also got no new ones from UM according to that list.
Remember that you can change your favored class bonus that you take every level. So you can take, say, hit points for the first couple levels, then pick up spells.