My friend, I think in your zeal to win the argument, you are losing sight of what the OP's question was about, ie: Mage Armor. It's a spell that is generally cast right after resting and out of combat when you have all your slots available and nobody is going to counter spell you. I already conceded that you were technically correct but I am correct that there is basically no need to ever cast Mage Armor at a higher level. Given this game's dogshit UI, they really shouldn't even let it be possible since if you aren't watching closely, you could easily cast the 2nd level version by mistake to no benefit (ask me how I know this.)
It's either a bug or they are dumbasses because there is no provision to cast Mage Armor at a higher level spell slot in the PHB.
I already posted the description of Mage Armor, clearing this all up, It just seemed to me that the point you were arguing is that if a spell that has no higher-level caveats (such as lightning bolt) can't be cast with higher level spell slots. Otherwise what are we doing here?
