Well, my two thoughts on this are I don't think "magic" is a bad thing that shouldn't be a part of the equation, and maybe we need to push the concept of what "magic" is in the game. I tend to agree with you that it's simply too easy and without real cost. Maybe widening that access to magic is one step in the right direction. Third edition had locations that, if you did something while there, would grant you some extraordinary or supernatural ability.
I just don't really see the difference between an action hero using a gun, getting a better gun, riding a car, etc. and a fantasy knight using a magic sword and riding a fantasy mount.
I think expanding out of combat options would be great. I don't see anything wrong with high level fighters having tremendous social/political/military pull in game, that makes sense to me.
The "hunt across space and time" stuff is not a foregone conclusion for me, so I wouldn't mind it as an option for people, as opposed to the end state for all hunters, as an example. Honestly, the point for me is that we just need more options, and let people choose what they want to play. Fourth edition had a great Epic Destiny in which you knew the shortest route to your quarry, and could travel across space/time to reach them within 24 hours, no matter where they were, even on other planes (IIRC). Pretty sweet concept. But it was a choice. We need more options to choose from.
Yeah this sounds about right. That said... I always just wonder about stuff like this.So I think there's a bit of a deeper, and honestly somewhat irreconcilable issue here. Different people at the table may want the game to be about fundamentally different scopes. There are character options - largely, but not exclusively spells - which let a player unilaterally choose to expand the scope (as long as the DM does not aggressively quash this, which is generally bad form anyhow). But there are not character options which let someone unilaterally narrow the scope or fix it on a specific thing. E.g. if someone doesn't want the game to be about combat they have lots of ways within the system to bypass combats; if someone doesn't want the game to be about roleplay they have lots of ways within the system to bypass roleplay; etc - but its harder to say 'I'm going to force combat to be the way we solve this drought!'.
How do you solve for a drought with spells that isn't simply "I cast this spell"? I suppose that using combinations of spells to do stuff that will solve for the drought in a way that isn't merely "I pushed the button and solved this problem" is going to require DM buy in. In which case, anyone can do it. Unless it requires magic.