I'm thinking she lost it in a game of cards, and Intelectus doesn't work at the poker table.

If my character's dead poor he'll stay that way, even if the adventure means we find several suitcases full of money, unless I spend several sessions slowly increasing my recourses skill (and maintain my skill pyramid while I do so) my character will continue being poor.
He could wallpaper his (tiny) appartment with 100 dollar bills but still not have a penny to his name.

Storywise the explanation for this is that your character with a low resource skill not only doesn't have a lot of available cash, he also has numerous debts that he has to pay off. For example if Dresden ended up with a wad of $100 bills and didn't feel compelled (heh) to return it he would probably pay his rent and bills for the month and any back rent and then use the influx of cash to justify a few days off, so all in all it would have no real effect on his resource skill. If you think about it the resource skill not only represents how much cash you have, but also how you treat the money you do have. You could make a CEO with a resource skill of 2 because he obsessively invests his money and as a result never has cash available to spend on things, or a Cashier with a resource skill of 4 because he saves all of his money and doesn't waste it on luxuries.

Most of the time when you are playing as the good guys those assaults are justifiable, but the moment you follow that up with stealing all their crap your justification for beating the crap out of them is meaningless and you will probably go to prison.

Okay I see the part about crafting specializations, and I totally understand how those work, but that isn't the same as being able to have a focus item that grants you those bonuses. Focus items don't grant specializations they grant bonuses to either power or control (for evocation) or complexity or control (for thaumaturgy). Since crafting does gain bonuses to complexity or control the RAW would suggest that you can't make crafting foci.

However if you wanted to you could change the aspect you are already getting from the story (in the "First Story" slot) to match what others added to the story.

How about a living M.C. Escher drawing.

Okay what my original question was, if I had an enchanted item that was a 6 shift EI and wanted it to be a spray attack can I only use it as one setup, obviously I wouldn't use it to attack a single target because I have other EIs for that, but would I need to say at the creation of the EI that it is a 1,1,1,1,1,1 spray attack or a 2,2,2 spray attack or a 3,3 spray attack or would I simply say it is a spray attack and decide how to split it up when I fire it off.

The fact that if you already have water evocation available it becomes just a focus item is why I originally had it grant specializations instead of focus slots. However if the staff has a purpose, whether Divine or otherwise, it comes with a price of its own, I don't think sponsored magic is the right way to go because it is a purely evocation based item already, however it could have Marked By Power and it could have a purpose of its own which could be used to compel the player who wields it so it does have drawbacks not inherent in a normal foci.