The "Downside" of empathy-based talents? Or, is this a dumb idea?

So, a few years ago, in an attempt to give my mages/ psions some "weaknesses" or drawbacks to kind of compensate for their special powers, I came up with the idea that, as their abilities are empathic to a greater or lesser extent, and they can kind of "tune in" to the life energy of the world around them, and they can feel the pain of those around them. This would include feeling the pain of animals slaughtered for food, including feeling an "echo" of the pain in the meat or other animal products such as leather. Obviously, this is a drawback in a semi-primitive society, where the community as a whole farms and hunts for foodl, and doesn't have synthetics such as plastic. This necessitates that the Talented are vegetarians--though I'm thinking that it might be okay for them to eat milk products. This also means that to avoid strong "pain echoes" or whatever, in any leather clothing, footwear, etc., they get second-hand clothing/ boots, etc., from others in the village, as the first wearer of the item will eventually "imbue" the item with their own spirit/ essence/ whatever after a while. I figured it would be considered an honor for a villager to give a Talented person worn-in boots, or what-have-you; it could become symbolic of the Talented person's importance to the village.

As a whole, is this a stupid, or lame, or cliche idea? Are there major holes in this idea that I haven't thought of?

My sister, of course, pointed out, "well, why don't they feel the same pain or whatever when eating plants and stuff?" My answer was, well, plants, as far as I know, don't have a brain, or nerve endings, or anything like that, and while these talented individuals can sometimes feel the "life pulse" of the forest and trees around them, they can't necessarily feel a strong life force from an individual plant or tree, since plants are such a different life form from animals." Is this a lame/ BS explanation for why they can still eat plants?

So far, it looks like I'm getting some decent, positive reactions to this idea. Yay Good point, those of you who mentioned that there are different types of empaths. I think mine are generally in the range of "able to sense the emotions of others", but not necessarily able to feel those emotions as if they were the person's own. Although I might make an exception to that "rule" during empath love scenes How's that for the "silver lining"?

To answer MumblingSage's question:

I have only one question that might not be relevant--would these empaths be able to do surgery on someone (okay, I get it's a limited-tech society, which is why my question might be irrelevant, but there's always a tricky childbirth or battlefield amputations and such), or would they be unable to bear someone else's pain even for a good cause? I ask because people with great empathy skills would probably make good healers, except for this drawback.../QUOTE]

Yes, one of the main things my hardcore empaths (as opposed to empath/ telekinetic) do is heal. And yes, through years of practice, which includes a lot of meditation and other methods designed to allow them to work through the pain, they've managed to find methods that allow them to heal, without curling up into a little ball from the backwash of echoing pain. However, in my WIP, there will eventually come a time when the majority of the empath's village is destroyed, and she was close enough when it happened that she felt their combined agony of dying. This will pretty much send her into a catatonic state for a while. . . . Do any of you ever feel guilt for what you do to your characters?

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