But you could use spellmaking to adjust it to exactly how you wanted it.
Buying a novivce flame spell, then going through the (not insignificant in oblivion, unlike the 5quest wonder that the skyrim guilds are) effort to gain access to the spellmaking altar, then spending the money to build a higher end version, was not the cheapest and easiest way to have a high level basic attack spell. In general it cost more than just buying on in the first place.
But you could build interesting things. I remember being so happy when I got the idea of building a huge area - low damage spell to knock all the crystals in a room down in aleid ruins in one shot. That was the kind of cool stuff available then.
Sure you could play around with efficiency and build a spell with multiple elements, but it wasnt insanely better, and had its weaknesses too. It really was about variety and customizability.
Sure there were some effects that were buggy, but most of it wasnt, and clearly skyrim is ok with some broken stuff being in the game after all

I see no reason why skyrim couldnt let the player tweak with the numbers of a spell while keeping the good looking effects for the most part. It seems like a pretty glaring omission compared to the rest of the elder scrolls series.