*coughs* The desura page has screenshots with mage paths visible on the main screen. Right under where the items would normally show, iirc.
Yes to auto-pool (particularly useful if they keep the blood hunting mechanics similar to what they are in D3), though. That and multiple-provice movement commands would be up there on my hoped-for UI improvements. Rally points would be nice, too~
I mean, an ideal for me would be able to set a commander+minion setup (with a set command for the commander to do while waiting for its troops to finish building, if necessary), and then tell it to go to X province (possibly via spell, if the commander's capable of it). And the commander'd just... start heading that way once its got the troops you queued up for it. All in pre-defined formations and everything. Double-plus bonus if you could set that on an empire wide basis, at least the formation+troop composition.
Similarly, having thug or SC templates would be goddamn awesome, doubly so if you can just click on one and it'd draw from available mages automatically. Like, you'd click on a province, click on a caster's commands, and one of them would be something like "SC Loadout" or some thematically appropriate nonsense. When you clicked on that and the desired template, the caster you're issuing the command to would do the summon, and idle mages (researching or actually idle ones, basically) elsewhere in your empire would go ahead and forge all the items you want for it. You'd have something similar for recruited critters. And you'd make the template straight from the chassis's status screen, dynamically, so you could see exactly what it'd look like at the end, as well as the full list of what your nation is capable of forging.
Just... something like that.