So I was flipping through ToB, and I noticed something I'd never noticed before. The feat Gloom Razor has an option for free movement: specifically, if you attack a foe you flank, then on your next turn, you can make a relatively easy Tumble check to move anywhere adjacent to that foe as a free action. You have to start your movement adjacent to your enemy, but it seems to me that this is a way of enabling a melee Scout to get Skirmish and still have a full attack left, without relying on Pounce (which requires room to move, so you can't use it on the same foe twice in two rounds, unless they're very nice and run away from you) or Travel Devotion (which can be used up). You'd have to be fighting a pretty big foe to get Improved Skirmish, but regular Skirmish can be enabled by just moving across from where you started.

Now, this does require a Swordsage dip, but that's not really a bad thing. And it has Shadow Blade as a prereq, but Shadow Blade is pretty awesome for Scouts anyway. (You'd probably want to stick with Island of Blades just to enable easy-mode flanking, anyway.) And sure, you'd probably want at least one other form of free movement (or getting a full attack after a move), if for no other reason than to enable your initial approach, but it seems to me that low-level Swordsage maneuvers are pretty perfect for that (Sudden Leap is a classic, after all, and Wolf Fang Strike is almost as good as a full attack for the early part of your career).

Anyway, musing aside, has anyone ever explored this option? Any idea what the earliest level you could get it up and running might be? Gloom Razor sadly requires BAB +6 (all of the tactical feats in ToB do, which means that the ones tied to Swordsage disciplines are much harder to get into than the ones tied to Warblade or Crusader disciplines), so it seems that unless we can get it as a bonus feat somehow (and I don't see an easy way to do that), that means we're stuck taking it as our level 9 feat. I don't see a way of making this come online earlier, sadly.

At any rate, I just thought this was interesting. I'd love to see if anyone else has any insights about it.