Is there a discussion from the devs for why they will not replicate Master of Magic? The similarities are striking but every time I think of a way to make SK better, I think of MoM.

For example.

Spell casting during combat.

Each cycle, the player is able to cast one spell without his units losing their turn. This makes sense can the wizard can have his own initiative for spell casting. Furthermore, certain creates were able to cast their own unique spells. Why not make SK like that?

Also, I was able to cast spells that buffed my guys, spells that debuffed/killed opposing guys. Enchantments that affected all units in combat, enchantments that affected the other wizard in combat, disenchantments, and even static spells like call lightning which would randomly strike 3-5 units with lightning bolt each round. 

Spell casting outside combat.

In MoM, there were city spells that helped my city's defense or production, etc. There were also spells that damaged opposing creatures; this is much like SK or FE. Then there were global enchantments that affected the whole world and cost maintenance. Why can't SK have that?

In MoM, there were three things we could do with raw magic: research spells, generate mana, cast spells. SK removed cast spells with Wizard leveling up. That's great, keep the wizard gaining levels part but add cast spells. Essentially, if a spell cost 100 mana and you could cast 25 mana per turns, it would take 4 turns to cast the 100 mana spell. If the combat spell cost 26 mana and your skill was 20, you couldn't cast it! 

Spell Books.

In MoM, there were five colors of spells: White for good, Black for evil, Blue for sorcery, Red for chaos and Green for nature. Each added a ton of spells with 99% of them being useful (unlike SK where I only cast 1-3 spells; the rest is fodder). You could find more spell books in dungeons and you only received a random # of spells depending on the # of books you had. 

Diplomacy.

In MoM, there were four other wizards each with their own goal. Some like to expand, some liked to build up a military, some liked to gain magic power. They also came with personality traits (randomly generated) like chaotic, lawful, etc. These guys would trade magic spells with each other and with the player, they would trade mana for gold, etc. None of that is really in SK except for the crappy trades once in a while. 

Artifacts. 

Why can't we transmute gear into mana? That's what we could do in MoM. Gear to mana. Mana to gear via create artifact spell, and money into mana and vise versa at a 50% penalty. 

Starting Cities.

There had to be 10 unique races, each with their own unique buildings, penalties to growth, xp, etc. Unique creatures. Why can't we have that?

I don't want to go on and on but for example, we could have six heroes at a time and they would come to us based on fame but also they could be summoned. There were like 50 unique heroes in the game.  Catching various mana nodes was also fun. City management was wonderful! Citizens made either food or production and sometimes a little of each. They would be pissed off and not do anything sometimes so need shrines or to stock up on troops to keep morale good. 

SK and FE, if combined almost touch MoM. But why not develop the next MoM? The wheel does not have to be reinvented.