Scrying Magic Sites from afar

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

It doesn't seem worth it to scry from afar for magic sites. It takes a decent mage out of operation for a turn, it uses up gems of the appropriate type, and you aren't assured of anything. You can beef up your prospects by searching only mountain regions, which have a higher chance of having magic sites, but you still have the problem of searching for fire, but the only site there is water--so you wasted your time, your mage, and some fire gems.

You can just search mountains, and use the astral spell which shows all magic sites--but it is a humdinger, using a lot of astral pearls, and you still aren't guaranteed results.

It seems to me it just isn't worth it. However, I constantly see posts about "make sure you start scrying early in the game...." Doesn't it make more sense to have a couple of rainbow mages searching provinces turn by turn? Include them in your army, and you get a battle mage that also searches. You can include a priestess (Arco) or whatever and do Heal while the mages search. Army marches first turn, second turn searches and heals up. Again and again. Much less expensive on the gems, and better chance of finding sites too....

Or am I missing something?