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if you Read the aquiring new magic in ether HU book you find out that the per level is just a quiky way of saying that they were working on their new spells all along. With the 'next level' being an easy reference to let the char have those spells.

The spell creation rules in Through the Glass Darkly are more for the more hard core games and their PC down times, or letting the GM craft spells to let their chars have or to throw at the PCs during a game.

I once had a char that didn't need to sleep, so I figured out how long in hours for each type of spell making.

Figuring out Existing, New, and Variants (time stated is the base time of 7 hours per day )
New--(147 hours per level of spell)
Variant-- (98 hours per level of spell)
Existing-- (240 hours))

Spells are PPE constructs that mages build to impose their will on space-time. Any words, motions, are memomonics to help them construct the spells. (i.e.: Crutches)

While incantationists use words to help them form the thought patters to form a spell, bardic mages would use music to help them form the thought patterns that form their magic.

While in the books they call it a science, it is still a very subjective art.

So while someone could copy a mages mundane actions to a T. They would never be able to form the spells just by copying. They would have to be at very least trained how to bend time-space to their will to be able to copy a spell just by observing it.

Summoners and gem magic use the mystical paterns in objects to augment or build their spells from