Yeah...I'm not too keen on that either. Where are the bubbling beakers, the mortar, the jars and jugs of exotic ingredients? 
That is one of many things I don't like in Ars Magica. Everything can be industrialised, to a point where the players are annoyed every time the magus has to toil for a season. Everything should be available as a device, a hireling, a lab text, or whatever.
The mystery and the individuality is gone. We have a game of Taylorist magic.
It is to consistent to be easily fixed too.
That's the way (my) players think. "I can cast spell, so not why invest some which make life more easy". and since the game let you share spells with others (learn them, take this scroll to cast ...) such things always happens.
and for some the mystery is, to snap a finger or wave a wand and then my room is cleaned, all my belongings from my big room are inside the small chest now, ready to travel, or my lab is unpacked from the box ...
I think the troop have to define, how far magic can go - somewhere between i have to roll "finesse for every inch my ReTe cup is flying" to "i snap my finger and the adventure is done" must be the line ...
Btw: txs for all the input i got, that is GREAT.
I even have now an adventure idea - gremlins visiting the coventant and do funny things with the labs of the mages ...
maybe
«have to»
but it is just impossible
it is a product of very complex and flexible rules
for the troupe to decide something different means rethinking the entire system ... years of author and editor and playtester work and a 30-year tradition
i didnt meant to rewrite all rules - but each time a spell which is invested or cast spontaneous there is a need to decide, which guidelines are valid, why this is possible/impossible, ... so we do it all the time "rewrite" (or better specify) ... also for an fast-installed lab spell.
Sure, that goes without saying. But then you are trapped in the loop and bound for ever more industrialised magic. For every iteration you lose a little bit of the mystery which makes the story worth telling.
In the end there is the Marcusian dystopia (One-Dimensional Man 1964).
What I like about the "industrialization" is that it provides more options for other characters. With this sort of thing you can make non-magi as copyists, lab techs, etc. who magi will appreciate. It broadens the opportunities for interesting non-magi characters. I'm not saying you're wrong to dislike it, just that some of us like it for another reason.
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Those are good character concepts as long as we are talking about the limited number of characters that the troupe is able to play, develop, and not least remember from one story to the next. That would still be an artisan scale, rather than an industrial scale in my wording ...
Yes, that is more how I've seen them too. They're more like talented artisans.
The problem with it all is that they are all good ideas, up to a point, and then it tips over from a role playing game to a numbers playing game.