Overall I like that the number of options and superfluous spells are being removed, but on the other hand I feel that some important ones are being thrown out (primarily with respect to offensive spells). I also had some possible suggestions, but because I am only an average player at best they may be ignorant of some particular nuances in balance.
In particular I don't like that crush is being removed from the mages. Going from a spell that can pretty much destroy a stack of city defenders (provided you have the army to clean up), to a summon that - while having earth affinity - can still only attack once per (or once, if you're not summoner) turn is a bit a leap. On the other hand, Crush was only worse than Meteor Swarm because it could not kill units (and I guess was also limited to 80% total damage, does collateral damage have a limited beyond not being able to kill?). Mostly this is just a pet peeve because Crush gave RoK civilizations, if they chose to use mages, a powerful spell and with a nice secondary effect for spamming earth nodes (getting more metal resources).
I'm also anxious about losing white fire. Perhaps it is only because I am Malakim/Empyrean in my current game, but Whitefire is a very nice mid-range offensive spell for good civilizations, versus AV's Ring of Flames. While it doesn't do as much damage per turn, it also doesn't hit good or neutral units, which I think makes it better than Ring of Flames.
The air elemental would be a good clean up tool if you gave it blitz and it kept the ability to spawn lightning elementals. With flying and a high movement rate it can help cripple your enemy if you don't have the brute force to kill him yet.
I like that meteors are being removed. It seemed that everyone found them overpowered. The fire elemental that replaces probably should still do collateral damage, but that you only get one (albeit with a much higher strength and no ability to bombard) surely still puts it weaker than meteor swarm.
On the Life3: I think you should keep both lifespark and resurrection. That is, you can summon a lifespark, which can then be used on a lifenode to consume the node and to resurrect your hero.
Crown of Brilliance could probably have Revelation added to it, albeit at a shorter range, although I've never personally had to use Revelation (and, at least in single player, Revelation alone is a weak tier 3 spell). I've noticed a few people were chagrined over it being removed, I guess it is way more useful against opponents who are smart about using hidden nationality units? Does it have any other use? I know it also removes invisibility, but I thought that you couldn't do anything except move while invisible without it being removed, meaning whether enemy units are invisible in your territory is pretty moot.
I think regeneration is fine as is since it means you don't have spend that one or two turns in enemy territory waiting for your stack to heal itself, even with a priest (unless you have a high priest, I guess, or, under my suggestion, a lifespark). It could maybe remove disease and plague as well, but that may make it way too powerful.