I must admit that I far prefer the higher effort spells costing more magic points. It just seems to make more sense in the context of putting forth more effort to do something more significant. Of course the roll is harder to cast it in this iteration which also makes it more effort, but since you don't always end up loosing magic points, the risk of it exhausting the caster more and more to do more powerful magic feels right.
Viewing post in Clarifications and Magic Change comments
Hello!
One of the great things about systems like this is it is very easy to add home rules to make the game your own. You can easily bring back the increasing cost for more difficult spells. I personally would max out the cost at 3 maybe 4.
Interesting idea on an item that reduces the cost! Sounds like a great find for a magic user or cleric.