[Sombre]

When I first started out I felt much the same, but later on magic picks up steam and becomes powerful enough to wreck entire mundane armies without breaking a sweat. Part of the problem is that low level spells tend to be so useless, but if you want a quick and easy demonstration of how effective magic can be, I'd suggest going with EA Abysia and going all out to research evocation spells. Then send out your fire mages to spam stuff like falling fires. Quickly gives you an idea of how effective magic is.

Note: I'm not saying EA Abysia is a great magic nation, just that they provide an easy to see example and you don't get friendly fire problems.