Ah yes. This was anticipated as well. I recall you have a kind of dissonance when it comes to sorcerers [note the small "s"]. I will try to explain.
The Wizard block contains all kinds of arcane magic users that can be considered "wizards" in whatever world they are in. Their being a Wizard means they depend on their magic and knowledge to handle the challenges of adventuring. Again, note the small "k." The Wizard block and Mage default label are, in no way, defining the abilities and specific mechanics and "Lore skills."
Your game world or even just your specific character can be an innately magical "sorcerer" who uses their arcane spells through personal force of will and concentration...the other guy at the table makes a character that uses arcane spells that they learn and study and write in books. BOTH types have knowledge of how to use their magic...one's figured it out themselves, one's read it in a book.
It is different knowledge, different modes of access their magic, but the core of the class: "using magic and their knowledge" is...not similar, but precisely the same. Thus, sorcerer is not a different class from a book-studying magic-user whether they're called "wizard" or "mage" or "sorcerer" or anything else.
As for the Druid's position, it is there, again, because it moreso than any other archetypal class a Priest and a Wizard in equal measure. They use their enlightenment, faith in their beliefs, magic and knowledge. There is also the added layer of their magic doing "some stuff divine magic can do" and "other stuff arcane magic can do." but that's not really important for their position by "How they do adventuring."
If a game, campaign setting or individual player defines that as "Natural magic" or the "Primal Power Source", "Druid spells" or simply innate druidic powers, doesn't really matter. A Druid can easily be interpreted, conceived, created and played as "a learned priest [of nature]." Sure. They can as easily be: the wild mad man in the woods that knows and can do strange things, the shapeshifter, the guy that tends the fields and animals of a village or surrounds themself with the animals of the wild woods, the local healer or "wise woman" [a Witch type of druid?], the defender of Nature or their Order of Nature Priests' liaison with the realms of "civilized" Men...even a "nature magic adept" with innate magic-using ability, viewed by those in town as a "sorcerer" even!
None of that alters where the Druid is or why it is there...and, applied to your assertions about Sorcerer, should show why it is not included as its own separate class archetype.
I disagree...on both counts. The first is illustrated above, the second is the apparent needing to repeat your set-in-stone view of that "knowledge" immediately implies only that the character has Lore skills. This diagram, once again because it bares repeating, does not speak to the specific mechanics of a particular class since, as evidenced above, and explained in the second post, this breakdown is about the types of classes...the "How they do." Questions and arguments about "what they have" to do "how they do" are not relevant...not warrant individual classes.
I can make a Cleric that can Channel. I could use the same Channel mechanic for a Warlock's powers. Because one person's Cleric channels different and another just "Turns Undead" and still another only has spells, no channeling, doesn't mean each type of Cleric deserves its own Class.
I can make a Paladin that can Channel as well...or one that can't channel but has access to divine spells...or one that just evokes Auras of their powers on their own no channel or spellcasting mechanic at all (hmm...does that make them a sorcerer-paladin?
Are you beginning to see or am I just talking in circles/loosing you?
See above. None of this is relevant.
And that, "I just have magic" puts them squarely, firmly, inarguably within the block of Wizard classes, for which the Mage is the default...now if to that Mage is tacked on studying and preparing spells from books and Arcane Lore skills, that's one kind of Mage. Just as easily and completely justifiable is tacking on "I just have magic and learned/figured out how to use it like this" [due to the fluff only bits of "mommy's a dragon/angel/thing" or "folks in this world are just born with it" or whatever]. Now, if you want to call that character a "Sorcerer" then fine. But it is just as easily called a "Mage" or, by virtue of it adventuring by using its magic and knowledge, a ""Wizard."
See above, re: refluffing options and one's "locked in" definitions of knowledge and wizard. I think I've offered at least a couple of refluffing options. There are, no doubt, many more just waiting to be created. In case I'm not being clear: You "take out "compulsory esoteric knowledge training" and put in "I'm just magic cuz mommy was a dragon" or "This half-giant guy walked into my hovel one day and told me, 'Yer a wizard, Harry.'" or "This world doesn't have wizard academies. People [even EVERYone in the world] is born with magic. They just have to figure out how to use it."
