What do you think the Orbs of Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire, Force, Sound are? Its the old Chromatic orb broken up into 6 different 3.x compatible spells.
I LOVED chromatic orb, I HATE its 3.5 descendants. The lesser orbs are these stupid touch attack abominations, deal way too much damage, but don't do anything cool. Then, the big orbs actually deal less damage than maximized lesser orbs (7d6 = ~24.5 vs. 4d8 maximized = 32) when you first get them, so why bother?
So many more flavourful (and balanced) touch attack spells, like:
1st level
shocking grasp (yes, it's touch attack, but melee. also, nifty attack bonus vs armored foes)
other faves:
1st level
alarm (drawn the straw that reads 'night watch'? hell with that, I'll let my mojo do the work!)
grease (nothing beats greasing up that dungeon hallway your foes are presently hustling down towards you)
colour spray (the better sleep, remains useful much, much longer into the game)
reduce person (beefs up archers and roguish types. ironically, I find it much more useful than its reverse, unless someone is playing a monk)
2nd level
glitterdust (I can detect invisibility and inflict blindness at the same time?)
web ('nuff said about this one)
false life (takes your well-being off your companions' minds)
spectral hand (like the style)
3rd level
dispel magic (insanely fun against spellcasters because you never know what will happen)
explosive runes (OotS shows how great this spell really is)
hold person (let's cut down those goons and worry about Big Bad Evil Guy later!)
displacement (the lower your AC, the more useful it becomes. also effective vs blindsense/tremorsense, I believe)
haste (already wicked for one target, but benefits the whole group. yey!)
I'll continue this later...