Two questions about the new ME2.

The skill point trick worked for me. I've done it in both my ME2 runs.

Add 19 skill points by using the retrain and advanced training functions, select Dominate as the bonus power. Maxes out skills for Shepard.

To get Dominate, you have to select Morinth over Samara in the Samara LM … that unlocks Dominate.

You can create a save game in Morinth's apartment, just before Samara arrives, choose Morinth, unlock Dominate, then load the save game and choose Samara, if you prefer … or not and just keep Morinth. Dominate stays unlocked in that game and in all future ME2 runs.

Takes a fair amount of eezo (~142,500), so you do a lot of eezo scanning (in addition to what you normally do), but once you get sufficient platinum, iridium and palladium, scanning for eezo doesn't take long, nor does it use a lot of probes. Usually, I have enough of the other three elements by the time I hit Horizon.

Note: the extra skill points don't transfer to ME3, so bagging extra points in ME2 doesn't give you any unused points when you import to ME3.

Note 2: wait until you are at level 30. Recommend you have enough eezo to grab the 19 points in an efficient single, tedious task.