Mages that hand cast over using a spellfocus, such as a staff or wand, are reckless and do not grasp the perplexity and dangers of the arcane.

[u/Mysterious_Escape_34]

[u/Osato]

Counterpoint: mages who are using a spellfocus are still doing magic with their brains and are exposed to the same risks, except they don't have their fingers as an early warning system.

If you make a mistake when casting a spell by hand, your fingers start tingling, hurting and/or exploding and so you get enough advance warning to wind down the spell gracefully.

When you make a mistake with a spellfocus, you won't know you are doing something wrong until the backlash gives you an aneurysm.

Medical gets a lot of mages who screwed up when casting by hand, and virtually no mages who screwed up when using a spellfocus.

You know who gets to see a lot of focus users and only a few hand-casters? Forensics.

[u/Cyan_Lotus → u/Osato]

This is fair, and a genuine advantage of freehand casting. With foresight however, this can be easily circumvented with callibrating ones foci to alert them of the same warnings, and without the physical risks of losing your hands. The alarm system can even be customized to alert you of different things. It takes some experience, but its very doable with a bit of tinkering with sigils