My approach on death and leveling.
Well, I'm not sure if it's unique (I haven't played many RPGs in my day, I usually just stick to my favourites), but I've come up with new systems for Paxtenus (vbGORE).
http://paxtenus.com/smf/index.php?topic=92
Please leave comments on the pros/cons of this system. 
It's still in development, but that's what I've come up with so far.
I'm confused, does this just change the metric to exp over time rather than exp per kill?
I'll try to explain it better.
"Experience" is not related to your strength in combat. It's simply a measure of how much you have fought. In my opinion, you still get experience, even if an enemy mutilates you. You learn not to do that again, and you indirectly grow stronger. It has NO effect on stats, etc. Most games I have played, you get to allocate new stats after leveling up, or you just get a bit of damage added to your attacks.
Also, there are abilities, which are basically like skills. The more experienced you are with those, the more skillful you may get. Not necessarily increasing damage with your weapon, etc. I've played a few RPGs in which, if you level up a skill, your damage stat or whatever will go up a bit, which is not the case here. Skill is a lot more based on the player's skill, rather than a bunch of numbers.
I'm not good at explaining things.
So experience would just make your level go up... Not any of your stats. So what does experience do? (I understand how to get it, but what are the benefits?)
Is it just a gauge of how long/experienced you are?
Sounds like you are thinking of a system where you gain "experience" in skills as you use them. Its actually a moderately common one, probably the most common other than generic experience that you gain from "whatever" and all ends up the same (like most every RPG does).