Have touch spells always kept the charge when missing?

[daemonslye]

I confirm, touch spells used to discharge with the attempted touch.

This is a 2E Sage response but another data point. ~D

Dragon 210, page 96:

When a spell-caster uses a touch-
delivered spell, does he have to try
to touch a recipient immediately or
can he wait until a later round?
What happens if the recipient is
unwilling and the spell-caster fails
in his first attempt to touch the re-
cipient? Do attack bonuses from
Strength apply to the touch attempt?

Generally, a touch-delivered spell re-
mains active only during the round when
it is cast (see DMG, page 61). There are a
few spells, such as dispel evil that remain
active for a short time or until triggered.
Check the description of the spell to be
sure.
It’s safe to assume that a fairly firm
touch on the recipient is required to com-
plete a touch-delivered spell, so it’s entirely
reasonable to allow Strength bonuses or
penalties to modify the touch attempt, but
that’s not official.

 

[Li Shenron]

Thank you for the interesting info!!!

I have always played that touch spells weren't discharged on a miss in 3ed, because of these lines from the SRD:

In most cases, if you don’t discharge a touch spell on the round you cast it, you can hold the charge (postpone the discharge of the spell) indefinitely. You can make touch attacks round after round. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates.

Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets as part of the spell. You can’t hold the charge of such a spell; you must touch all targets of the spell in the same round that you finish casting the spell.

Fine with the "hold the charge" part, but the part about making touch attacks one after the other always implied to me that you could try again after a miss.

However in 3.0 basically all touch spells have no save. This IMHO makes them far too good. People say that you have to get close to the target and that's enough disadvantage, but that is true only for a Wiz/Sor, and absolutely false for a Cleric for example who is very often fighting in melee anyway. 3.5 corrected this by adding the saving throw to (probably) many touch spells, but I was wondering if perhaps it would have been better to simply make touch spells discharge on a miss just like any ranged touch attack spells.