The Broken condition (p.122) and Mending and Make Whole (p. 94)

I'm a little confused about the way the Broken condition interacts with magic items being repaired with the spells Mending and Make whole.

The Broken condition states:

If the item is magical, it can only be repaired with a mending or make whole spell cast by a character with a caster level equal to or higher than the items and then only if the spell eliminates all of the damage the object has taken.

First of all, it is unclear to me whether "if the spell eliminates all of the damage the object has taken" means eliminating the damage all at once (that is, if the spell must heal *all* the damage), or if multiple castings can be used to repair the item.

Second, going to the spell descriptions on page 94:
Both spells define broken magic items as "at 0 hit points or less." However, wouldn't an item reduced to 0 hit points or less be destroyed rather than broken?

Mending states that magic items can be repaired with the spell, but that it does not restore their magic abilities. But if an item is broken, it can still have magic abilities (they just don't work as well, as per the Broken description on page 122). So does mending restore them to full functionality, or not?

Make Whole states that it restores the magic abilities of an item if your caster level is at least twice that of the item. This seems to conflict with the description in the Broken condition which states that Make Whole can repair magic items with a caster level equal to that of the item's caster level.

Finally, make whole states that "items with charges (such as wands) and single use items (such as scrolls) cannot be repaired in this way." Does that mean there is no way to repair a broken wand, for example? The Broken description on page 122 says make whole can repair broken wands or staves, but the spell description says this doesn't work. Which description is right?

I realize this is very nitpicky stuff, but it's important to get the details right. (Good thing you have a small army of proofreaders for the Alpha releases! ;)

I don't have the courage to go check all these issues from the book myself, so I trust your tale (though I would have liked to see straight copy-pastes from the pdf.) In the light of the given issues I'd say magical repairing is very very confusing. Actually so confusing I don't know how it should work. Designers, help!

I'll look at the broken condition and sunder mechanics first.

To me it'd make more sense if broken magic items could be repaired by either Make Whole or Mending (Mending repairing only 1 hp/CL due to balance issues). So, destroyed magic items could only be repaired with Make Whole.

To me it'd make more sense if broken magic items could be repaired by either Make Whole or Mending (Mending repairing only 1 hp/CL due to balance issues). So, destroyed magic items could only be repaired with Make Whole.

I think that's probably the intent of the current rules. It would help, though, to have them clarified. I wonder if it would be a good idea to include a "destroyed" condition? Then, it would be easy enough to say something along the lines of, "Mending repairs 1d4 hp of damage to an object with the Broken condition. Broken magic items can only be repaired if the item's caster level is equal to or less than the caster's caster level. It cannot repair destroyed objects."

Make Whole, then, could state that it repairs both broken and destroyed objects, and that broken magic items are repaired if the item's CL is equal to or less than the caster's. Destroyed magic items, however, could only be repaired if the caster's CL is equal to or greater than *twice* the item's CL. And it would probably be a good idea to include a clause about having all of the item's parts present at the time of casting.

Still not sure about the scrolls/staves issue, but the above would clear things up considerably.