My initial impression is that magicians run out of juice too quickly.  Although my players are nowhere near Dresden in power, we have seen him fight pretty hard and long in Changes, and elsewhere.  Molly and the trainees can hang in as well.  Yet the system is beating up my casters, who are out of Oomph after 3-4 spells, and this seems counter to the spirit of the books.  And so:

1  What's your experience?  Is there some part of the rules I've overlooked?

2  What do you do for recovery?  Tricks, hints, etc.

3  How about a Refinement that lets you reduce the stress of a spell of a certain element by 1 or 2?  Maybe have Rote spells cost less stress?

4  A spell with Shifts below your adjusted Discipline costs 0 mental stress?

Also, has anyone looked at making these casters more individualized and less cookie cutter?

Many thanks in advance.