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For those of you interested in the voting thread - first, my apology for not being more active. I've been a bit busy.
Second, I think it might be helpful to work out the nature of kyslite. When the Cataclysm broke the world and made it into what it is now, new materials were created as well.
So far, on kyslite it seems to be a repelling force that keeps the flying islands flying. It was suggested that it exists in trace amounts in both water and earth - enough to keep things in the air but not enough to rip things apart.
Furthermore, it has been suggested that kyslite bonds with some other mineral - that the breakdown of these recharges the kyslite by exposing it to sunlight and that too much mining of either material will inevitable result in the gradual sinking of a flying island.
However, I think it is important for the next round (and to prevent arguments) to work out what mechanisms keep thing as they are. As such, I'd like any and all proposals for kyslite and other materials that might keep things in the air. I will place these suggestions to a vote in the next round.
So far there is a tie between A and C. If this remains, I will go with C as I don't see a reason water couldn't be held buoyant as well as earth.
Is it the repellent force that lets it float? I wasn't sure on this.
It was the repellent force that keeps the islands from colliding which was the sole purpose presented for granting it that property. Tacticslion wants a weak repellant force... BUT if you have a force so weak a breeze can break it then it isn't going to do ANYTHING to stop a pair of greenlands and their trillions of tons of rock each hurdling toward each other from colliding. Clearly since people wanted massive land masses and won fairly then the repel force must be truly massive in order to absorb and redirect such colossal impacts. But if the force is massive then earthquakes would be common... and people don't seem to want earthquakes either...
Using Levistone instead of Kyslite would solve the earthquakes and water issues. BUT it wouldn't stop collisions. Is there some other way to prevent colliding islands? One that sounds better than it's just magic?
A semi-water-bonding [ala lipids+soap+water] gravity-buoyant radioactive-powered material that holds light repulsion for itself, but who's repulsive properties fade in water [again, similar to some other bonded materials], but strengthen dry; it has another element that it tends to bond with dry that helps it bond with dirt, rock, and other minerals that produces lift, cohesion, and greater repulsion (similar to naturally magnetic materials, when bonded with other materials, becoming more powerful magnets). These properties are relatively consistent and scientifically viable (except for the magical nature, naturally). Further I wasn't thinking of flying seas as floating balls, exactly, but more stretched floating quasi-ellipses with variable borders and definitions due to a combination of evaporation, wind-pressure, naturally-forming mist-cum-cloud covering (making them seem like really dense clouds, and leaving them only visible in extremely strong winds... which would tend to turn them into either roughly-egg-shaped globs due to air-movements, or, if it's a powerful sheer, a flat-straight nearly-glassy "sea").
^ This is my presumption. But my presumption is also that the strength of the repellent force depends on what it's bonded to and how concentrated it is - in other words, different covalent bonds generate different properties, akin to the differing properties of soluble materials when bonded or dissolved into other substances (which, you know, is different from covalent bonding... but this is a magic substance we're talking about, and thus we could adjust its properties based on our own needs, but then have it internally consistent beyond that.
Thus, properly-bonded kyslite would bond with a sky-island, but repel other sky-islands.
ALTERNATE IDEA:
Of course, if kyslite is, instead, a magical effect based on magical radiation-absorption performed by mindless creatures that create a shades-like effect, then dispel magic becomes quite dangerous to the islands, if wide-spread enough.
Katydid - does my bonding explanation satisfy in that regard?
The fact that it's repulsive properties are based on what it's bonded with (and, being bonded it could easily be distributed across an island or, in its bonded form, turn into vast networks of veins, similar to ore today, which could then be mined). Again, in some regards, its properties would be similar to magnets: weak natural magnets are weak, but certain kinds of materials (made through bonding) are much more powerful; further they repel each other under certain circumstances (magnets it's lining up the poles; kyslite it's bonded with A v. bonded with B).
If it appears throughout in thin lines (similar to veins of ore), this could help clarify how the sky islands both come about and how they stay together... much like a tree's root structure can keep the ground around it intact even under extreme conditions (though not all extreme conditions, naturally - there are plenty of exceptions to this that have been developed over time, that I'm aware it's not a perfect idea), the veins of kyslite could do the same in terms of retarding erosion; the stuff the majority of people live off of (the loose dirt, then water/plants, then other properties) could come about after that fact. (In fact, druids might be especially important members of society, because their powers over plants help keep the islands from eroding to nothing, unlike "that one island" everyone knows about.)
The boyancy and levels of the islands could also be explained as a two-part combination: what the local kyslite is bonded with plus the ambient amount of magical radiation: this would explain the propensity for given islands to stay at roughly certain heights, as well as why the lower areas are more dangerous. This is (very) roughly analogous to energy shells that electrons hover at (though with more variability, and, of course, muuuuuuuuuuch more slowly :D).
Finally, I'm uncertain about the nature of its rarity, as currently presented. To me, it might be better to make it only recently realized. In other words, since it's always bonded with other elements, many people might not even know what kyslite looks like - even the experts. Perhaps they'd have to rediscover it on a given island each time. Given the nature of a given island, there may have been something a gold-rush equivalent of a certain level that later started to cause the islands to sink, taking many of the prospectors with it. The electron shell+magnetic field would actually work in this case, because as the stuff was mined, it would come closer and closer to dropping an energy level... until suddenly it lacked the ability to maintain itself, at which point it all just began falling. Thus it's possible that kyslite is, after a fashion, semi-ubiquitous, and either just not recognized, or considered "untouchable" (because of it's necessity to the health of the floating island). This would make the currently collected/purified deposits (gained from the aforementioned "gold rush" time) all the more valuable, and worth fighting over... as would be islands at that tier in a certain region.
One thing that seems pretty clear to me, at least, is that, barring some very specific kyslite forms, the floating islands are not going to conform to the classic Netherese "inverted mountain" visual trope - that sort of structure isn't supportable under any of the paradigms we've established other than my little radiation-parasite one (not the one noted in this post above) or a large amount of kyslight forming the bottom of the place... but in the latter case we quickly run into the island flipping (as noted) or the amount of kyslite thoroughly overwhelming the amount of everything else (i.e. "here's a kyslight plate - now build on it! ... but keep it balanced, or else!"), which is something I don't think we actually want.