question regarding focus items and specializations for sponsored magic

[Wyrdrune]

a player of my group, playing a winter pixie, raised a question. he compared his spell casting capabilities (and the ability to improve it) to the group’s wizard and commented that the wizard “only has to raise five aspects of his magic” (meaning the elements of evocation) via specializations (or foci) but he needs seven or eight (the example aspects of winter magic I wrote down for him: cold, despair, death, decay,... etc.).

this brings me to following question(s):
can sponsored magic be used with foci/specialization?
if the answer is yes, does he need a focus for each nuance of the winter magic or just one for the whole package as it comes from one source?
and, would he need a specific focus for the ritual parts of the aspect “decay” and one for the evocation possibility of “decay”? or, one for “winter magic, evocation” and one for “winter magic, ritual”?

example: does he need...
a ring of ice wall (evocation focus +2 defensive on ice spells)?
or
a ring of ice wall (+2 defensive on winter magic spells)?

how do you handle that in your games?

[citadel97501]

This isn't very clear by the rules, however my group has just had the element ie. Winter Magic count as a separate element. 

So in our games we would allow the 2nd ring in your example. 

However, this does seem to promote the use of full evocation with sponsored magic, since then they can get more than a +2 specialty refinement.  Although if they choose sponsored magic that provides any Thaumaturgy with the speed and methods of Evocation they may gain a more powerful bonus to foci, as we have agreed that those don't separate into offensive & defensive types. 

[InFerrumVeritas]

The way I read the rules is that you can treat Winter as its own element (thus he would only have to raise one aspect of his magic).  However, Refinement can only be used to grant more items, not Specialize.  One of the devs has been quoted as not allowing specialization with SM.  So, he can put all his focus items in Winter Magic (offensive or defensive, thaumaturgy, etc), but can't get Specialization like a Wizard (making each point of refinement he takes roughly half as effective for evocation).