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While discussing these difference could provide every reader new balancing levers for future ideas, because you never seem to "admit" to the notion that Magus may have "too much" power already inside Spellstrike, and that realistic suggestions need to accommodate this uneven class design, it feels like continuing in this thread is less productive than rolling a boulder uphill.
Wait, have you actually played a Magus or is it all white-room speculation ? I'm not trying to diss you, I'm just geniunely interested because your experience seems to be really different from mine.
In a real game where people actually have to move and adapt to the flow, the magus is hardly the MVP. He's one of the worst DPS if we don't use focus spells, and around the middle of the road if we do use them. He flounders against very high AC bosses, which is a shame because those are the targets where his spellstrike would actually shine. He's very bad at improvising and like someone said, he suffers a lot whenever his limited actions are even more limited (slow, stun or even difficult terrain).
My magus used Imaginary Weapon so I could keep my slots for buffing, and that evened out the field somewhat. I wasn't the highest DPS but maze, mass slow, disparition or premonition allowed me to make a big impact on the battlefield.
But what about those magus who don't pilfer focus spells ? They have to blow their valued spell slots on attack spells, which means at the end of the day they're basically a fighter who deals less damage but can use a wand without multiclassing - woohoo.
So, in my opinion and after playing an Inexorable Iron on and off for 12 levels and a Twisted Tree throughout 20 levels of Agents of Edgewatch, the magus certainly doesn't have "too much" power. I felt much more powerful these last months playing a sorcerer, a witch, a ranger, a rogue or - currently - an animist.
...and that was before the sure strike nerf.
Magus sure can spike a lot when the situation aligns and it being a gamble class is fine.
It being able to take huge chunk out of solo bosses health or one shotting minions is great and all. But it takes a lot of party setup and luck (less so at early levels when a good roll with a spellstrike ignition, especially with Runic Weapon on, can one shot most things. which i guess is where the sentiment that Magus is OP comes from) to hit those high.
And that's fine on paper but what if you like the fantasy of magus but don't want to *only* gamble ? There is less support in the class for that, in part because recharging spellstrike can be a chore with some studies, and the whole feat lineup doesn't give you much outside of more spellstrike.
Which feels a bit lacking on the gish fantasy.
Now of course i'm not saying "what if you wanna play a magus who doesn't spellstrike" but "what if you want to do other stuff than spellstrike every other turn ? What are your options to still be a magic warrior ?"
You can use buffs, utility spells, yes. But there isn't much synergy there in some part.
Arcane Cascade is under explored, where it could be a whole other side to the magus' coin. As suggested before, feats relying on Arcane Cascade thematically (Riving Strike, Rend Defenses, Cascading Slice, Cascading Knockdown, Arcane Feint, Cascading Splash, etc) maybe some replacing certain "Spellstrike upgrade" feats like Devastating Spellstrike which imo isn't really that useful as is but would be a neat option as a strike option you can use anytime while in cascade, as a thing to do when dealing with groups or swarm even when spellstrike is on cooldown.
And yes, the issue of having so few spells to juggle between buffs etc and nova. I think bringing in Spell Combat again could help a bit with that, either base or as a feat. So even when using buffs and such you can do some action compression within a turn that only magus can pull off (like move, draw lightning, strike. or shield, mirror image, strike etc etc etc)
I'd like to mention: I think the Sure Strike nerf was necessary.
Painful, maybe, but looking at some comments in the dedicated thread mentionning how their setups of a familiar handing a supply of scroll to them to be a sure strike turret does show why it was necessary.
A painful bandaid rip, but hopefully this means that for some casters (in our case the magus) will get a bit of breathing room in the "power budget" to get more things going than spellstrike and all.