I hadn't looked through all the spells. But I'm assuming that eventually they're going to have all the schools covered at which point the mage, no matter their specialisation, is pretty clearly the winner.
Unless you're not specialized. The upside of schools is that their effects are focused. The downside of schools is that their effects are focused. If your controller philosophy is 'Push all the things' then mage is superier. If your controller philosophy is 'Grab-bag of effects' then arcanist is superior.
If you're not specializing in pushes and forcing attacks, then does bonuses to pushing and forced attacks actually matter? No. But that extra defense DOES.
The orbizard will still be a powerful option, no doubt, but it is also a very specific build with very little variation making it, quite frankly, a little boring. It also requires an Int/Wis split which is exceptionally rare for racial bonuses, leaving ones choices again, limited.
Int/Wis isn't exactly hard to come by. And for defensive players, neither's Int/Con. And last I checked, the absense of Int/Wis hasn't exactly made orbizard less mighty since the game was released.
But with the mage, secondary stats are pretty much up to the whim of the player. At most you need to qualify for whatever feats you want in the future, and even then, there are numerous feat paths you can take for quite a bit of variety.
That's an unfair comparison. Comparing the mage to one build of wizard is deceiving. Both the mage and the arcanist have the same requirement for attributes. But an invoker and a staff wizard are equally as beholden to constitution.
And even then, the orbizard only has one schtick (at least this was the case last time I looked, which admittedly was a long time ago), usually only viable once a day. One of the most powerful features of the wizard (spell choice on resting) is maximised as a mage, making any school choice a winner.
If you're going for (you suck, save ends) abilities, there's Sleep, Deep Slumber, Legion's Hold right there off the top of my head, which is three encounters reduced to nothing by the Orbizard builds.
Those are the enchanter dailies, which enchantment specialization does absolutely nothing for. Do they force movement? No. Do they force an attack? No. School bonuses are doing absolutely positively NOTHING here. Orb does something.
On the whole, I think the mage is a far more versatile and powerful choice than any build of wizard and once all the schools are represented in the powers, I see little to no reason to make a wizard over a mage.
If, and ONLY if, you specialize in a type of effect supported by your schools. If you're looking to generalize, the school bonuses only help one or two of your powers at best, and that's not going to help you as much as, say, Staff of Defense, which is always on. Or Tome of Readiness, which is versatile as hell.
As well, mage schools have no feat support, whereas wizard implement mastery does.
And even in some specialized cases it's not so easy. Mage illusionists are better debuffers, but orb illusionists get their effects to hit something more often. Is getting brutal on your evocation spell more DPR than being able to make a miss a hit?
The comparison is not as simple as you make it out to be.
