In classical myth? Probably not. But Now it's a classic of D&D and almost every game that was influenced by D&D, along with fiction based on such things. This is a lot of stuff.
It was not a classic 2 or 3 centuries ago; it is now.
I don't really disagree with this, it is kinda self-evident. OTOH I'm not convinced it MUST be this way, particularly in our own 'hacks' of various D&Ds where we can do things more as we see fit. I mean, I dunno about you, but I GREATLY doubt anything I do in this space will ever be used by many people. So I figure I am not real beholden to D&D tradition, and aside from 'I want to emulate some character of an older game' it is not like there's a lot of figures in myth or whatever, so not really an archetype per-se that I need to service with such a class. Obviously this is a pretty personalized idea of what to put in a game, so its not like it is relevant to you or anyone else except as it may be interesting for us all to compare notes. Likewise of course your own opinions on this are interesting in elucidating ideas, etc.
However...
What "thematic" consequences the book wizard has? If you want to limit it on how must it can do, that's not hard.
I discussed that above. Because 'arcane knowledge' isn't really thematically a source of power, and anything might come of knowing obscure things or whatever, the thematic focus granted by the arcane power source is basically nil. The consequence being exactly what happened with the 4e wizard, it 'ate' many other classes, thematically expanding into their roles and thematic space. Thus you got wizards virtually replacing sorcerers, invokers, etc and expanding to fill many areas like necromancy, illusion, summoning, etc with one 'uber' class. Notice that some other classes actually 'fled' to other power sources in order to continue to exist in some form (the Elementalist being the prime example).
Other power sources in 4e were much more coherent and thematic. The elemental source, the shadow source, and the primal source, and the most focused being the psionic source (monk aside, which is IMHO psionic in name only). Even the divine source, which could potentially be its own thematic monstrosity, managed to be contained within a limited design space (albeit one might say that the arcane was the vehicle for that confinement).
In my game we have the Spirit, Elemental, Life, Shadow, and Martial power sources. These are fairly abstract, but you can actually say that your character is gaining power from SOMETHING. My warlock is a Spirit source class, he's drawing his power from a pact with some sort of higher/lower being. My sorcerer is Elemental, he's drawing power from the forces of raw creation. Druids are drawing from the power of life, illusionists from shadow, and monks from Martial -the power of your own person. It serves the original purpose, thematically confining each class and giving it a thematic core to draw from. Sorcerers don't cloud their targets minds, call on deals made with spirit beings, heal, or rely heavily on expertise gained through constant physical prowess; they unleash and harness elemental forces to create and destroy.
