Horizons: Smeglor gives an explanation on Statistics

Attributes:
Note that all skills are slightly increased by some or all of the four main attributes, so they have that value in addition to the specifics below.
Strength: Increases damage with physical attacks. It is 50% more effective than attack skill in this respect.

Power: Increases damage with magical attacks. It is 50% more effective than casting skill in this respect.

Dexterity: Increases chance to hit with physical attacks, and decreases chance to be hit by physical attacks. It is 1/3 as effective in these roles than attack and evasion skills.

Focus: Increases chance to hit with magical attacks, and decreases chance to be hit by magical attacks. It is 1/3 as effective in these roles than casting and magic defense (which is being renamed to magic evasion) skills. Also increases friendly healing spell amounts by 1/2 as much as does the casting skill for the healing spell (usually Life).

Skills:
Offensive skills (including weapon-using skills as well as spellcasting skills for attack spells): Competes equally against the evasion or magic defense of the target for chance to hit. Weapon skills also compete equally against incoming attack skills for initial Parry checks. Also adds to damage by 2/3 as much as Strength or Power.

Defensive skills (evasion and magic defense): Competes equally against incoming attack skills. Evasion is also re-checked equally against incoming attack skill for initial Dodge checks.

Healing skills (mostly Life): Adds to healing amounts by twice as much as Focus. Note that the healing amount cannot exceed double the healing spell's specified range.

Shield skill: Competes equally with incoming attack skills for initial Block checks.

Armor: Reduces incoming non-ethereal damage at a slightly better rate than Strength and Power add to such.

Ethereal Armor: Same as Armor, but against ethereal damage.
Resistances: Add to Armor and Ethereal Armor against attacks of the resistance's type.

Wards: Add to Evasion and Magic Defense against attacks of the resistance's type.

Parry/Dodge/Block bonuses: These "active defenses" use a two-check system. The first check is a skill contest, as outlined in the skill section above. If that check succeeds (from the defender's point of view), then there is a flat 20% chance of the defense working. Parry, Dodge, and Block bonuses add to that 20%.

Other stats (such as Armor Use and Augmentation) are simply for meeting requirements.

Crafting skills are used to determine the number of resources required to make an item.

Gathering skills are used to determine the number of resources gathered per "hit".

Attributes are not used in crafting/gathering beyond their increase of such skills.

Given the above, you can see that skills are generally more effective than attributes. However, attributes have a much wider application.

I'll endeavor to improve the in-game descriptions to match the above.