Finally, I'd suggest a limited size spellbook. This'd stop players making 50 copies of a long cooldown spell and cycling through them in a fight. Instead a player might have a varied selection of spells including self buffs and spam attacks, or they could opt to create a series of semi-duplicate "high yield, long cooldown" spells that they'd call upon at regular intervals, but not often and sacrifce spellcasting flexibility in doing so. Alternatively some kind of global cooldown could be employed, so casting a high power spell with a cooldown artached would exghuast the caster and prevent him casting ANY more spells for the chosen period.

Fundamentally being able to design your own spells was awesome and is something they should definatly hold over,but it could use a bit of expanding upon.

Not the functionality of it or anything, but the look of it. Am I supposed to feel powerful when I shoot a little blue ball at someone?

Can we atleast just make the magic LOOK good? Have some magic course through my body before I launch it at someone, or have the animations look different for different spells. Maybe I could "pull" flames up from the ground under an enemy or hold them in place with one hand while simultaneously blasting them with the other.

Magic is supposed to be powerful and taxing, but it's never felt like it in these games due to poor execution. So is anyone else in favor of a massive overhaul in the magic department?