I have created a spreadsheet that generates random Descent heroes ! (Excel file with macros.) It's highly parameterized so you can tweak the costs, priorities, and ability list to customize the results. It's not fully documented yet, but you can probably figure most things out from the cell comments, and I'm happy to answer questions.
This is currently a preliminary version, and I plan to release another with bug fixes, parameter tweaks, and probably an expanded ability list soon, but I wanted to get some additional eyes on it. Do the generated heroes seem generally reasonable? Do you notice any tendencies that seem odd or undesirable? If you look at the behind-the-scenes "costs" for different things, does anything leap out as over- or under-valued? Please post your comments and feature requests. Also accepting suggestions for more abilities to include in the giant list; want to keep the heroes feeling as different as possible.
Thanks, and enjoy.