Oops! Actually, we don't use these rules anymore either! We thought they were too complicated. My troupe stripped this down to 3 xp per month (when we using the 1st edition system) and now that we're using seasons it is a straight 9 xp per season.
Correct, except we stuck with the 1 xp/month or 3 xp/season for Knowledges, including Magic Theory. Talents and Skills can only be advanced with experience (yearly and/or story), and Skills can be raised via training under someone of superior skill as well.
Not sure what you mean here. We don't roll for being diligent, so if that's in 3rd ed. then we laid it by the wayside as well. Yearly experience had to be justified somehow, as long as it was plausible. E.g., in order to put an xp into Certamen (y'all still have that?) you had to convince another mage in the covenant to practice with you during your fortnight of downtime.
I agree emphatically! One of my most cherished activities when I get to create a saga is coming up with the names and authors and histories of the library. The last saga I ran began with a massive library (it was a winter covenant) that in the course of the first couple stories was purloined by an elder magus (there was some murder as well). Recovering these tomes, book by book, sometimes not in such good condition, made for some good stories and it created a whole new level of value to the players.
I had to pull a copy of a third ed book off the shelf last night to refresh my memory of the rules and I saw the diligence roll at that point, I could be mistaken it was late, but I certainly saw something of the sort in there even if I got the specifics wrong.
No, certamen skill got axed in fifth edition. Certamen was reworked to use feature more choices and link in with other skills (parma, penetration, and finesse) instead of a single certamen skill.