I had agreed with poisoning being bad in PVM until last night, I saw a guy in covetous destroying things with nox fields and EVs. I was impressed and have since decided to make a pvm poison necro mage. The bad part is how much aggro you get, like old nox pvp mages who have billions of counts because they flag everything that runs around. I think necro can handle that tho, they are the masters of holding area and nox fields only make that stronger. Work SW in somehow and you won't ever die. Lol.
Alch is amazing in PVM you just need blue bugs and pack animals to have enough to make it worthwhile. Melisande wines also do much more damage (potentially.. they seem to have a very large damage "roll". I've hit for 20s and 80s I am not sure what to think about them anymore.) The worst part of being an alchemist is that you can't carry many pots anymore due to the weight. It would be nice to see that changed if you are in fact an alchemist. But if you can get a corpse skin the explode pots will add a ton of "free" damage very quickly.
Scribe in PVM is wasted, UNLESS you want to max your casting focus. Casting focus can be extremely beneficial and GM scribe gives you 5% (I think). If you stack Casting Focus items with scribe it maybe worthwhile. That is assuming you never play in protection and want to be able to cast when being casted on and/or hit by monsters. I personally do not 'love' CF, but I run the battle mage tunic, kelp leggings and crown of arcane tempermant for my pvm mage. I was after the SDI items and they are "extra" mods that come with it and I've learned to love that random spell that goes threw. It's great when it's a g heal that you really need.
As for wrestling in pvp I never have HCI on my wrestle mages. You won't hit a guy with parry very well. You won't hit most people very well. But the Stun Punch seems to work better then the disarm. I can't disarm anyone but I can stun punch the hell out of people. It often works out better if your a mage because it gives you time to cast and the dexxer thinks "i still have a weapon im good" As soon as you disarm the guy goes running... which sometimes is a good thing! On a tight temp I personally prefer the anatomy route, but even 40 med mages work, just have to know how to spend your mana, and have a large pool.
I love to see anyone NOT PLAYING MYSTICISM. I think mysticism is too strong and it gets boring very quickly. The RC is ridiculously overpowered, Cleansing Winds is healing for dummies, and Hailstorm does more damage then it should. It's a good mage set, don't get me wrong. It just takes about an hour to master vs a necro mage who takes much longer. I happen to enjoy the more complex magic sets. Example is a pure mage knows how to use all 64 spells in that book. A mystic mages never really learns the mage end very well because of how strong mysticism is. Necromancy is a support type casting set, same with spellweaving. So even with these skills and magery you learn you mage end better because necro/sw do not do enough damage or have enough variety in spells to be able to overshadow magery. They only enhance it. Mysticism can be run by it self and be almost as strong as magery by itself.
I suppose it boils down to how you want to play, mysticism is strong and that is potentially fun to people. I find it a bit too strong and so I go for a different style for a little more challenge and diversity. I also enjoy being very active, I do not like to cast a summon and invis, I enjoy casting lots of little spells and moving around non stop.