1. Tune gaiters to two slots instead of one. This would lessen the amount
needed to rape to become a fearsome mage. Maybe in the process tune the total
spell% gained from 8-9 (name bonus can hit) to, let's say, 5-6.

2. Increase the rate the monster in question wears gaiter. This would decrease
the amount needed to check it. Maybe personal prot could be upped to, say, a
month. Both of this things would combine into the fact that racing and
unwanted player interaction in form of greed would diminish. Maybe even our
fellow Americans would get the change to check on it occasionally and it would
not be gone 1h from boot always.

3. Tune major mage spells to work as efficiently at 100% as they now do at
108%
(ie. more damage, no bonus damage beyond 100%). This would give more mages a
chance to be as powerful as gaiter rapists. And in the process, remove
gaiters.
This is my favourite suggestion. And I know this would make exp matter more as
a mage.

4. Create more items with "+spell damage and -spcost". This one is courtesy of
Kaahn.

-Yours, Broetchen the Archmage

P.S. I do own gaiters, 9 of them, and still find it the best solution to
remove them completely and tuning spell formulae instead.

exp should matter far less than eq in terms of power, otherwise we would just
be a silly exp grinding game where lammas is considered a real player duh