Are all weapons effectively Cumbersome (or Unwieldy) 1? Or is the invisible default value 0?

Can you have a characteristic value of 0?

The critical hit rules do not say that a Horrific Injury can not temporarily reduce a characteristic to zero but the rules for Gruesome Injury do say that a permanent reduction to a characteristic can not reduce it below one. Therefore it seems as if player characters can not have a stat permanently at zero but that they can have a stat temporarily at zero because of a Horrific Injury..

To make Brawn 1 characters feel different? I remember enjoying playing small halflings who couldn't even use regular sized swords effectively in old dnd games. It gave the race and character some charm aND added a fun story element that helped define rAce in rules and roleplay. I like that they included cumbersome 2.