Answering your question isn't as simple as it may seem.
First of all, RQII has to remain as compatible as possible with MRQ for obvious reasons. However there are refinements that can be worked into chargen that make the experience more rewarding and, yes, create characters that have greater depths of beginning experience (which they now do).
Both Pete and I have RQ: AiG but no, we didn't reference it. Its a while since I opened-up RQ:AiG, but from what I recollect, the chargen is more complex than both its predecessors and MRQ - and that isn't what we were looking to introduce. Greater sophistication, yes; greater complexity... as little as possible.
One of MRQ's considerable strengths is its chargen, and so we wanted to tamper with it as little as possible; but what we also wanted to do was increase the options within it and take advantage of the kind of play RQ has always engendered: community, heroism but still a gritty, realistic approach.
We did not feel compelled to go back and analyse every single iteration of RQ, whether published or not. What we did do was look at RQ's lineage across the games that have used BRP as its base, and integrate the elements we knew would be easily compatible with RQII without introducing layers and layers of complexity just for the sake of it.
So no, RQ:AiG didn't figure in the design process. But then, some other iterations of BRP didn't either. I think the direction we took was the right one. You, of course, may disagree, but wait until the rules are available before making that sort of judgement.
