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Back in the days of 3.5, I made use of the Practiced Spellcaster feat, to let my multiclassed casters get some extra power into their spells. In Pathfinder, we have Horse Master (use character level as effective druid level for your mount's abilities) and Boon Companion (add 4 to your effective class level for Animal Companion progression), but Practiced Spellcaster didn't make it. I know there's Magical Knack, but that doesn't help if you multiclass later in life when you weren't originally planning for it, and it isn't available in PFS (where I primarily play).
So my question is, first, just for my own curiosity, does anyone happen to know why Practiced Spellcaster didn't make it into Pathfinder? And second, do I have any other options for increasing effective level? I'd like to get more power from my spells without having to go deep into the arcane class. (A big one is that I'd like to get a few more rounds out of my round-per-level duration spells.)
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I think the intention behind the lack of Practiced Spellcaster or equivalent is that Paizo prefers primary spellcasting classes retain their advantages over characters of other classes or multiclass builds.
PFS is tasked with keeping the game as balanced as possible, and Practiced Spellcaster frankly takes that in the wrong direction. Yes, it could be available to everyone, but it favors the rules-savvy and complex PCs. Paizo has done a great job making straight base classes relevant again, and I imagine they are reluctant to change that.
It is entirely intentional that class choice is a tradeoff; no single build is meant to be great at everything. That's why adventurers go out in mixed parties.
This is typically becomes a hot topic with strong opinions on flexibility of character choice, viability, and so forth. I would like to see a feat like Practiced Spellcaster made available if there were some way to keep powergamers from abusing it.