I find the concept interesting, though it still seems opaque, at least how I'd imagine it would go with some of the people I play with.
I'd been interested in seeing a system like this for d20 and a couple of years ago I picked up True Sorcery from Green Ronin. It's similar in that you are constructing spells on the fly, though with their system it is about constructing a spell, getting a DC, and then rolling a spellcraft check to see if you pull it off. Thus you had flexibility vertically and horizontally in terms of power. If you failed then you could take non-lethal damage and get the movie/book classic effect of the wizard getting exhausted.
Even with that system laid out, it also just felt to fussy for my players to embrace it. But what I'm wondering is for those who did delve into True Sorcery, how does it stack up compared to Words of Power?
The reaction I have to both of these rulesets is that I still want something simpler and more streamlined. I enjoyed the 3.5 psionics system, which did have some flexibility with scaling, but it was just vertical scaling. The power point pool was simple and didn't slow down play.
Ultimately, the flexibility is coming from being able to deliver just enough resources for the intended effect, allowing the caster to choose between going nova or firing off a zillion low powered effects over the course of the day.
