Sure a screenshot of the classic edition while I speak of the Enhanced I am sure but feel free.
I can post screenshot as well if you that will really make a difference.
There were a methods of lowering costs and cooldowns in D:OS1 depending on your stats, not sure if depending on your skill tree aswell. Same went for normal attacks, you could make them less costexpensive aswell, if I'm not mistaken.
Well in EE you cannot reduce the AP cost with your stats and if you had higher spell cost if was because your skill was too low. But increasing the spec further would not reduce it lower than its base cost.
Normal attack don't get AP reduced by stat nor spec, except for the dual wielding spec which I think is only in the Enhance Edition, which is the dumbed down version as you say?
You also have the trait elemental affinity in EE and DOS 2 reducing the cost of spell by one AP. Guess what? is it much stronger now in DOS 2 because the average spell usually cost 2 ap instead of 5 or 6, making one point less much more efficient.
And even if you have specific setup to cast 10 spells in DOS EE after fully buffed yourself and waited your turns to finally do something; I wasn't saying it was impossible, what I am saying however is in general, every combat round you have about the same amount of action per turn as you previously had.
