[@Raddum]
If we're looking for a penalty for using the Judge Sword... perhaps it's like any 'Deal With The Devil' usually is -- you're basically losing your soul to The Emperor slowly?

Are you sure Cecil isn't a Paladin yet? He can alternate between them on the fly in Dissidia's gameplay, but I haven't seen the cutscenes -- is there some point where he gains the Paladin abilities or something? His whole [i]thing[/i] in Dissidia is transforming between the two.