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While I have yet to get a chance to play a Magus, I HAVE played something similar before, which might give some insight into how to 'fix' the Magus if it's as bad as posters seem to be indicating.
First off, I _love_ the idea of mixing magic and melee. Buffing and running into a fight is okay, I guess, channeling spells is great, being able to fight _and_ cast spells at the same time is _awesome_.
Back in the 3.5 days, I had an idea for a character and, at first, no idea how to implement them: Wizards are often carrying around quarterstaves, but they aren't good with them. I wanted to make a wizard who could kick butt with his quarterstaff while throwing spells in the middle of melee. (I am sad that the Magus can't do his thing with a staff)
For me, a lot of the fun of optimization is making what sounds like a really sub-par (in D&D's mechanics anyway) character idea and making it work. Eventually, I found what looked like a good combo:
1. the Havoc Mage prestige class, whose _thing_ is, like the Magus, attacking and casting in the same round -- Instead of penalties, it was limited to one attack and one spell per round, though.
2. Combat Expertise - trade attack bonus for AC? My spells don't _need_ good attack bonus, I can block attacks with my staff while casting!
3. Staff Fighting - +2 to AC when fighting defensively (and, any sane DM would hopefully rule, when using combat expertise)! With this, I at last have a _reason_ for a mage to use a staff!
I played this character through many dungeons, from 4th-9th level, before the campaign petered out. Once he got Battlecasting, the last piece of his combo, he was awesome. Not only could he attack and cast, he could benefit from it, making himself harder to hit -- and with his investment in staff fighting (TWF was a prereq), he wasn't too shabby at plain old physical combat when trying to conserve his spells (Which was good, because DMs in this campaign weren't shy about throwing a lot of encounters per day at us). He could even combat expertise at full and play tank!
Maybe such a character is overpowered, and I recognize that you can't make the Magus use the same mechanic as the Havoc Mage, but I hope there's an idea in this concept somewhere that's helpful to the Magus concept.