Leveling Down in Games

Leveling up seems to be quite common, especially in RPG’s. It seems logical in a game or series of games, that your skill increases and the the game experience becomes more challenging to match. Does it actually reflect realty though? We all get older and slower as life goes on, but we do (hopefully) tend to get smarter which can more than compensate for our declining physical abilities. What if a game worked this way? A player starts out strong and gets weaker as the game progresses. They must master the intricacies of the game or learn new skills to compensate for the decline of their starting abilities. This could be accomplished with initial starting abilities in an RPG style game or possibly with a finite amount of Cash or Resources in a economic or euro-style game. Has anybody tried this in a game yet?