[Lord_Bob]

But you still loose a whole turn moving them to a lab.... and you still pay the 800 gold castle cost.

Yes, it is 800 gold instead of 1300 gold, and, most importantly, you still have to wait the castle construction time. Lab's only take one turn to build no matter what.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, the cheapest research mages are ALWAYS SACRED. So you would normally want to build a temple to.
Making the real cost 1200 gold instead of 1700 gold.....
Oh wait, the random path mage isn't sacred so....... and all sacred's take a lab.

This is really very very far from game-breaking. Could someone sneakly pull a reasonable advantage from it? Maybe.

I fear triple-blessed phantom vans a lot more in the early game, myself.