Yeah, I tend to disagree as well Sancta.
For the example above of a "declaration" of using Discipline to focus your mind, that seems a lot more like pulling a navel-gazing maneuver on yourself than it is that you're declaring a Truth about the world. I suppose it could be a Truth, but if it is it's a pretty transient one which seems a little weird.
I think it was also mentioned somewhere that to keep the spell caster from hogging the spotlight every time he wants to enact a bit of thaumaturgy that it's not a bad idea to let others join in on the creation of aspects to meet complexity costs. Which I think is awesome. Although that might make meeting complexity costs too easy and efficient, but it is true that the point of the game is for everyone to have fun and be involved in telling a story.
Back to the original point of this thread, I was wondering about a passage that's in one of the Dresden books. He basically says that people like himself are capable of feeling the energy that makes up magic, which makes it a heck of a lot easier to manipulate. What this seems to mean to me is that regular joe schmoes even if they can't feel that energy are able to manipulate it by following exacting procedures to that end. So Ritual magic for mortals, either burn Fate points to temporarily pay for the Ritual power, or maybe let them use Thaumaturgy but double all complexity costs. Let the actual setting up for the ritual draw in power automatically equal to the Conviction score of the person setting it up. I figure this makes it too dangerous and difficult for Pure Mortals to do most types of thaumaturgy that venture over a certain thresh hold of complexity but it shouldn't be impossible to be able to get a wide range of effects that can be counted as "common" rituals.