Calm down.
Your pro-cd position can be opposed with the exact same arguments: It's so long noone will ever use it.
Well that or it'll be ignored by some "go to homestead - sleep - port back with pyramid" abuse, turning what should be a game mechanic into a minor timesink, rendering the entire thing plain useless. It's fine if you like useless mechanics, after all giving players the illusion of making meaningful choices can be part of game design. But I don't think that kind of thing belongs to combat balance.
It seems your issue is more about the current state of the inventory than the reagents themselvess, and I don't think you should judge it based on its current alpha state. And if you're not using a mage, why pick up reagents to begin with? If you see an item called "sulfur" and its description says "magic reagent", is it really that hard to figure out what it may be used for?
And don't forget the game will be filled with books giving ingame information about everything.
What you hate, others may love. I'm sure for some people it would be very enjoyable to search and sort tons of ingredients for alchemy & spells, then find out their use, if they can be mixed for additionnal effects, etc.
Sure, between the cooldowns, the cast time and the reagents, it may turn magic into quite a complex system, which I actually may myself not enjoy. But I think one shouldn't have to play a "mage" to enjoy the game. Pure warrior, or pure ranger, or hybrid, should be equally viable. One should decide on how to build his character(s) depending on what gameplay he likes, not what is OP/required to progress (eg: you must have fire shield and thus invest in fire sorcery to cross the lava lake and progress through the story).
