I'm not entirely sure if this is intentional, but you can spam magic attacks out of combat, which makes breaking objects too easy. You can spam the same type of spell at least 5 times in a row, as you can see in the video I linked.
Yea, that happens to me too. Even when a spell should be on cooldown but it casts it again instead before going on cooldown. Mostly happens with Staff of Magus and Minor Heal for me.