>The way they present it in the article, a specialist mage
gets his 6 schools, saving throw bonuses, bonus spells, etc. and 30 points
to buy special abilities on top of this, whereas a non-specialized mage gets
40 points and has to buy his schools of magic (at 5 points per school).<

Well they don't. If that is how it reads, and I am not looking at ir right
now, it plain shouldn't. Just as for the priest variants, all such
"standard" classes, basic variants included, are complete as presented, and
any additional abilities must be paid for with limitations or x.p.
penalties. Don't let any player convince you otherwise, no matter how the
text may seem to read.

Samwise