They could highlight the areas affected better I suppose. I've still ran across several enemies (Usually the plate wearers) with light enough MA that exploding a barrel or something similar brings them to 0 and makes them susceptible. I'm way more frustrated with Hail Strikes hitting outside it's target than these spells.
The Fortify, Battle Stomp, Contaminate preset is a weak one imo, but I usually drop the Contaminate for Fossil Strike in the early game. I usually run multiplayer games where everybody picks their starting spells.