That's true I imagine. In the same vein that a druid who doesn't cast any spells doesn't benefit from that class feature. Nor does a monk who refuses to use their ki. It's not exactly a compelling argument for the essential meaninglessness of those class features however...
A wizard gets two spells every level compared to the sorcerer's one. However, they can only prepare one additional spell each level, so they're getting one spell they can cast and one spell that will sit in their spellbooks. Each wizard has a theme as well, so the spells will typically focus around that theme and work with the wizard, so they're unlikely to be swapped out save in special situations.
An evoker who reaches 5th level will pick the obvious blasty 3rd-level spells at that level but if they memorize both it comes at the cost of an earlier spell. And at 6th level they gain two more spells but are likely to memorize their choice of go-to spell chosen at the prior level. So the two new spells are largely superfluous. Situational. If the situation comes up, excellent. If the situation just never comes up... then they're not functionally different from the sorcerer.
And there's always the possibility of choosing wrong.
Plus, a sorcerer can change out low level spells. So, at higher levels, they can swap a low level spell that is no longer useful for one that has greater utility. The wizard can't unlearn a spell, and can only learn a new low level spell at the cost of a higher level spell.
I don't generally go about auditing the spell lists of my fellow players too closely....even when I'm DM. But I change my prepared spells around all the time while playing prepared casters. Mostly simple and logical stuff - swap in a few party buffs and non-saveables if I think I'm going to be facing something with legendary and/or spell resistance. Trade my fireball spell out for something else if I'm hunting fire demons. Put in counterspell or silence for a spellcasting foe. Maybe false life for something I think might otherwise one-shot the character. There are a lot of spells that are situationally powerful or necessary but otherwise not something one would want to waste spell picks on.
You might swap a few spells out, but you don't pick completely different spells every time. A wizard could have two alternate spell lists, changing all their spells any given day. But that almost never happens.
Also, not every player WANTS to manage an ever changing spell list. That's extra bookkeeping and a massive hassle. The sorcerer is a lovely compromise between other spellcasters and simpler non-casters.
It sounds like you make the most of prepared casters. That's cool. Maybe the sorcerer isn't for you then.
Uhh...no. Ritual spells are unusable if not prepared. What they do is save spell slots - so it doesn't actually reduce combat readiness to check whether any of that random junk is actually a valuable magic item or to translate that weird text you've found. Some of them are quite useful but not otherwise worth a spell slot. Try summoning an Unseen Servant to haul around a simple sheet for portable cover next time you get a chance in game.
Check again. The full text of Ritual Casting from the basic rules:
You can cast a wizard spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spell in your spellbook. You don’t need to have the spell prepared.
So the sorcerer would gain little benefit from this feature, since they always have the spells prepared. The wizard gains more as they seldom need to even memorize ritual spells.
However, there's a rule that says you cannot cast ritual spells without this feature in the magic section. But I wonder if that was an oversight as they forgot the sorcerer didn't have ritual casting. That said, how many ritual spells do the sorcerer have access to?
What I still don't know is how many more spells per day... I want to see that really the Sorcerer has more firepower than the Wizard if she wants, because I am not at all convinced that Metamagic has the same weight as 3 times more known spells. The Sorcerer will also always have the edge on doing a lot more things on the fly for sure, while the Wizard needs more time (time to cast a Ritual, short rest for Arcane recovery, long rest to switch spells).
It's really a tricky comparison overall, when there are many things on both classes that affect the amount of casting. Perhaps we could write down the extreme cases such as when a Sorcerer uses all points to create highest-level slots, when it uses all to create lowest-level slots etc...
The wizard has 3x as many spells in their book but only has 2-3 more spells "known" each day (which eventually becomes 3-4 after Int bumps); the sorcerer effectively has 1+level, while the wizard has level+Int. Until 14th level, on a given day the sorcerer and wizard "know" almost the same amount of spells.
How many more spells a sorcerer knows is fluid, but it's very reactive since they can swap out sorcerer points on the fly when they need a particular spell or effect. It's really comparable to Arcane Recovery since both classes can gain an extra spell of their highest level each day. Only the sorcerer doesn't need a long rest and can choose over the day. And they can choose to make their existing spells better. And the wizard rounds down on spells regained, while the sorcerer effectively rounds up.
