Between gravitational and magnetic force, you can do a lot with projectiles.  It's not quite as flexible as pure force effects, but it's close.

Yes, but once you've linked a word with a particular spell, can you change that word?  We have no direct evidence or testimony on that (very specific) topic.

I'd totally let Earth evocation cause people's feet to sink into earth or stone.  Of limited utility inside a wooden structure, admittedly... but an effective block to movement.

Per the rules, you get only seven permanent Aspects.  Characters are often more complex than that - and some kinds of characters have 'hidden Aspects' when it comes to certain parts of the game, like wizards with unintentional hexing.

If someone wants to establish a detail that serves as a very specific Aspect for a particular topic, I'd have no problem with them doing that.  Harry's inability to speak Latin properly early in the series would be a good example - it's not part of his core seven, but it's a very obvious disadvantage that probably gets him a FP at several points.

We've been over this before.  The book examples do not involve Harry casting meaningless spells that do nothing, followed by an effective spell with definite consequences that would be represented mechanically.

He casts lots and lots of spells, all of which have described effects with what would be mechanical consequences in a game.  They can't be described as 'color', they are significant actions.

My vote is 'no'.  If you don't actually possess any of the powers that grant item slots, you can't gain more through Refinement.  Nor can you gain extra elements (if access to an element is part of the deal) or increased skill.  In a fundamental sense, you aren't the source of the magic, and nothing you personally do can improve it.

If you have those powers, though, and the Sponsored Magic is an extension of your power rather than its source, then sure.

"In the context of the entire series, it's clear that as wizards gain in skill, they learn how to get more out of less - specifically, they make their magical energy 'go farther' by using their energy more efficiently. "

Bingo. Look at Harry's description of Luccio's abilities with fire compared to his.

The only reason that's not a fantastic example of your point is that it's possible it's an example of high levels of Discipline and control bonuses adding to the effective damage of a strike - so there's an alternate explanation.  Luccio might be less potent and using skill to take the place of power.  But I agree that it's pretty strong evidence - if she wanted, Luccio could probably throw fireballs around, too.  And likely one of the reasons she doesn't is that she's conserving energy.

In the game, you don't get any benefit from using fewer shifts of power in a spell than your Conviction permits, assuming you can successfully control either level.  That's just something that we have to put up with because no system is perfect.  The fiction makes it clear that wizards and other entities have limits on how much energy they can usefully devote to magic, sort of like liquid fuel they're carrying around, and if they use that energy efficiently they can effectively do more with it.  So using a needle-thin stream of focused fire instead of a massive fireball to make something dead would be preferable if you had the skill to pull it off.

Yes. You read that. You did. The point we've been trying to make is that there are multiple ways to read a scene.

There are always multiple ways to do anything.  There aren't always multiple correct ways to do something.  Given that there is no rigorous definition of what a scene is or is not in DFRPG, we have to go by general usage and common sense.  And by those standards, it's all part of one long, multi-chapter scene.

The summoning of Cowl and the ultra-ghouls doesn't make anyone safe who was in danger before.  It puts everyone who was in danger in even more, and pretty much everyone who wasn't at risk before now is.  And if Harry hadn't been able to counter the gambit, it would have rendered the social consequences of violating the duel's terms null and void.  It doesn't matter if Vitto becomes an outcast, or exposes Outsider involvement, if the entire White Court gathered in the caverns is slaughtered.  If all the witnesses are dead, it doesn't matter what they saw.  Cowl and allies could then dominate the surviving WCVs without having to worry about resistance.

It's definitely not a concession.  You don't 'concede' a fistfight by pulling a gun and trying to shoot your opponent with it.  It's an escalation.

We don't even need to focus on this particular battle.  I picked it because it was a relatively early example of the game rules not matching the novel material.  There are plenty of later examples where what Harry can do clearly violates the limits placed on game characters.  And you can't even explain the events by attributing things to 'Sponsored Magic' with Winter, because Harry resists almost every case of the mantle's impulses towards violence and destruction.  He'd be building up a massive debt that he soon wouldn't be able to pay off.

Just acknowledge the elephant in the room, guys.  The game rules don't reflect the canonical increases of a wizard's abilities with skill.  Increasing the numerical bonuses on casting, but not increasing the amount of casting that can be done, eventually leads to a break between the setting and the rules.