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Okay, brainstorm last night, don't know if it's been touched: I like the school powers idea, but what if we made them more generic?
Take the Warlock's eldritch blast: it doesn't do much damage, but they can do it every round. Well, what if we had a comparable special ability for the wizard/evoker? In addition to their spells they can send forth a blast of some sort that gets more powerful as they rise in level. Even after their spells are spent for the day, they can fall back on this less-powerful ability.
each school has an ability. You can use it only as long as you've got spells in your repertoire, and it's only as powerful as the highest-level spell you've got available.
The powers as I see them:
Evoker: arcane blast, a ranged touch attack against one target. every few levels it counts as a new type of damage (good, fire, cold, lawful, adamantine, silver, etc.), for the purposes of DR; only as many things as you've got levels of spells level (so 3rd level spell would be 3 damage types it counts as), and a set order they come in (fire, cold, silver, adamantine...) so you can't just pick and choose each round. Damage is 1d6 per spell level you've got access to right now (so if you've got a 3rd level spell left, you can do 3d6 damage to one target each round).
Necromancer: animate/create undead at will. They can't have more HD than their limit, but as they get more powerful they can create more interesting undead. Max HD made is double the level of the highest spell you've got handy (so if you've got a 3rd level spell, you can animate up to 6HD of undead this way in a round).
Abjuration: a protective field at will (ie: they maintain the field as a standard aciton each round) either blocks a new type of attack every few levels (fire, cold, missiles, force effects, acid), or negates one die of damage per spell level available (so if you've got a 3rd level spell, you negate 3 dice of damage that round from either any attack or all attacks against you). The field could grow at higher levels, protecting others. maybe.
Summoning: Same deal as the necromancer, but you'd summon HD of creatures each round. You'd have to use a standard action to do this, and if you didn't the critters would go away. 2HD per level of spell remaining (3rd level =6HD).
Divination: Mage sight, but one new thing you can look for per spell level available: evil, good, law, chaos, magic, poison, undead, etc.
Illusion: Create an illusion mimicking one sense per spell level remaining. Sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, but also what it detects as magically (heavy magic, good, evil, undead, etc.). They'd counter divinations.
Transmutation: I don't know yet. Possibly wildshape into specific forms (wolf, bird, dragon) per spell level left, or else polymorph stuff around you.
Translocation (another option): you can move faster, or gain a new movement type (spider climb, fly at low speeds, minor teleportation, etc.)
Healing (theoretical option): Caster can heal damage 1d6 per spell level remaining, and/or condition modifiers (fatigue, dazed, etc.) and/or ability drain. Gives the option of the kindly caster of the arcane.
What this does: simplifies the abilities of spellcasters for on-the-fly playing. It also allows a signiture spell for the character, while they can still study the more varied spells that are out there normally. they'd likely use more interesting spells rather than eat up all their slots on evocations. This could also count as something they can do *aside from* specialization: everyone picks a special ability, or designs one based on the above. Then, as school specialization in the PHB (pathfinder handbook) is handled normally with banned schools, it would be on top of the special ability; so if forbidden schools include evocation and necromancy, you could say the PCs can't pick those special abilities.