First of all I'd like to say that this topic is in regards to all of those others about the lack of spell crafting in this game and less spell effects given to the player.

Well the thing is, this is a nordic land and it's not famous for magic or the use of it. We also know that the game is placed 200 years after the oblivion conflict and the mages guild was disbanded. Now having that in mind we can clearly explain why the magic system doesn't have around 1600 of same spells with different power and effect and rather 92 unique ones, lore explains it so we don't have to go frenzy on the devs.
Now this of course can be used to justify the lack of the content in the game but just think about - the vampires, the warriors, thieves etc, they are all different in here. In my opinion warrior class is much more powerful here then it was in oblivion, thieves got they're nightingales that can easily surpass the normal thieves from cyrodil and finally dark brotherhood is in crumble after the events of oblivion and is only a shade of it's former self. It would be ridiculous to put overpowered mages in a land that is everything but magic oriented and I know this hurts the old school fans that got used to it, but if you want the series to continue, you have to take the lore into account.
Summoning dozens of different minions from the planes of obliivon in a land that nobody knows how to or have any connection with the other realms is just silly same with necromancy - in skyrim there is no law about it because magic isn't as advanced as in other places.

All of this can of course be fixed with mods without destroying the lore and concept for newcomers so I can't see the problem for all that whine.

Am mage player myself, level 52 at the moment after the main quest and can tell you that using shouts as a synergy to my mage has it's moments, I can imagine that Cyrodil mages could easily pwn every other mage here but no idea if they could go toe to toe with dragonborn and his mighty shouts.

Sidenote: spells looked like crap in previous TES games and only the effects made the magic bearable, here spells are unique looking and in the contrary to the popular opinion, useful. Playing on master difficulty in a "different" world then previous TES games, I am happy to be forced to sue potions and companions by the odds.