Rainbow Mages Worth It?

[General Tacticus]

I like Rainbows... A lvl 2 in most path is not that expensive (26 points by path with the "humans" pretenders), you can always skip some of them if you want... And later you can easily empower/forge your way to 4 in every path. The fact that I play on big maps is also a factor : searching by other means is either very time consuming (easily 5 or 6 mages that do nothing but searching) or expensive (Arcane Lore). And what if I have a 5 Death Gem income a turn which nobody but my pretender can use ? I can turn it into astral pearls, gold, empower someone, lots of possibilities...