Thats why my familiar is a cat - she knows
I think Euphemism has it right. The Medieval paradigm really didn't treat things in quantum fashion; sure they had the idea (at the philosophical level) of 'atoms', but what we are looking at here is more the difference of silver in coins vs hack-silver. Subdividing the bird poop, there might not be enough Vis in the bird poop to form up into a full pawn, but that doesn't mean that Vis is inherently pawn-sized. A given amount of silver ore -- sufficient to make two silver pennies -- can be subdivided into parcels too small to make full-sized coins, but it is still there.
Hermetic magic might not have tools for worrying about piddling small change, scraps of Vis too small to make into full pawns, but that may be because nobody has bothered to invent spells for that yet. After all, the pay off seems to be not-terribly-exciting -- too little Vis for Hermetic magic to do anything with.
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I somewhat agree with you. Somewhat, because I agree with you that identifying vis type and quantity is not fundamental during an adventure, even though identifying vis per se is. I think that's also overlooking aura dynamics. Without those spells, you still have to figure something is vis. Which usually means casting something else to identify vis, unless you have a virtue. If you're doing that spontaneously, you end up with a high botch dice situation for what is a routine adventuring activity if you happen to be in a faerie, dominion or infernal aura. I have found InVi to be one of those type of spells that you cast over and over and over, and if you don't have them, over time, this builds up to twilight. You don't know that exotic mango fruit has vis until you test it, and if you're gonna test it, why not have the spells to do it right the first time arround? Yes, it could be done later, but how much random stuff are you going to carry with you on the off chance it has vis in it, without knowing for sure? If you bought a spell to detect vis with vision instead, with the idea that you'll give it to your accountant later to identify in detail, again, you've fallen into the "unless you have another trick to identify vis" category. You've found a work arround those two spells, but you still paid for it during character design.
Absolutely. Having a covenant treasurer is something we've done in almost every game I've played with. That being said, there's a difference in my mind between having someone who's in charge of the vis accounting for the covenant, and ensuring the distribution of vis salary, and having someone else in charge of the vis accounting you personally own. Typical charters give the first collection to the magi who finds the vis. Additionally, vis salary builds up over time unless you're constantly spending it. There's no guarantee that what you'll be given is in a form that's convenient. It could be - but that requires a lab day or a spell. Having some vis accumulation over time is normal, how much is normal depends on the game type and what your character's study method and lab projects are. And while magi who are organized enough to ensure they keep their vis in 15 different types of containers can avoid wondering which of their containers contains the right vis type, not all magi are well organized, and having those spells is just handy. Not to mention tribunal interactions. If I'm spending vis, or selling something I created for vis, the last thing I want to do is run to another magi to verify if the transaction details work, I would just find that humiliating in public to do on a routine basis.
I know I would dislike turning to an NPC to ask them if what I found on an adventure is worthwhile, when it is literally a cantrip to perform. And if my character became the go-to vis identifier for someone else, that magi would likely get a gentle reminder to spend a season learning the spells if their mentor failed to give them what I consider to be basic magi tools. The last thing I want to be doing, as a senior magi, is to be performing cantrip for the young magi. Come to me for that high level Aegis of the Hearth, for speaking to the dead, or communing with a rock, or whatever is my specialty? Sure. That's why I spent all those hard-earned years learning XYZ, and that's what a covenant's for. It reminds me that I'm considered an expert at something. Come to me to perform a cantrip? It's not my fault your mentor failed to test you before his gauntlet - but I'll happily spend a season teaching you basic spells if you serve me for a year in the lab if your magic theory is not as much a wreck as your spell knowledge is. While I'll happily ward off the covenant from the local river's overflooding as a ReAq specialist, please don't come to me everytime before stepping out the door when it's raining to cast Cloak of the Duck's Feathers too, unless you're cute and we're sleeping together. Learn the spell or find a mundane way to handle the rain, I'm not your mother, and you're supposed to be past your gauntlet and be an adult.
Yes, this is very much about social dynamics. Group relationships may vary. 
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Ah yes, indivisible "atoms". Similar in some ways to quantum with its discreet states. Perhaps the phrase I am looking for is related to Tertium Quid.
Hermetic Magical Theory does seem to treat pawns of Vis as indivisible "atoms" of magic. Though I don't think there is anything written on if it is necessarily true of other magic systems.
OTOH, random accumulations of matter are not reknown for having more pawns of Vis than their component parts. Semita Errabunda being a noticeable exception.
So Magi don't go up to a random construction - eg a castle, bridge or set of plate armour, to detect Vis and then attempt to transfer the accumulated fractional pawns that now exceed 1 pawn of Vis, into a more convenient container.
Reminds me of a Sir Terry Pratchet discworld story where it is acknowledged that a royal heir immediately becomes King when the old King dies, so a philosopher suggested torturing a small king and measuring the "kingness" of the heir as an instantaneous communication system.
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I was responding to this initially, however, I do appreciate you're response was about my comment about you overselling their importance.
You bring up some very good points. You've changed my mind on the following point. The running to the established magi would be akin to an employee asking the 20 year old established guru to help with entry level work. The guru would help for a while, but they'd expect the entry level employee to learn their job at some point.
It is fair to expect nearly all established magi to be able to identify magical things. Long term, I expect nearly every magi to find an apprentice, and to have 5 in every art and form so they can properly teach an apprentice. Once they've done, that a season to get 2 level 5 InVi spells would be trivial.
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There are the Soqotan sorcerers; they routinely use 'sparks' which are one tenth of a Pawn of Vis (Hat tip to Troy for reminding me of this; Rival Magic pg115 first paragraph under 'Incense Ceremony'). I think the limitation with regard to Pawns is that Hermetic magic doesn't (yet) have the tools to measure or use anything smaller than a pawn, nor much motivation to develop them.
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Side Query: why 1/10?
So much of the ancient world used factors of 12.
Apart from the quibble that hindu-arabic numbers are more medieval than ancient, I might remind you of:
- 12 signs of the zodiac
- 12 Olympian Gods
- Old-English used "dozen", and "hundred" (=120). "Gross" being 12*12 = 144.
- 12 months of the year
- daylight has 12 hours, night-time has 12 hours
- 60 minutes and 60 seconds are factors of twelve
- 12 pence to the schilling
- 12 ounce to the pound.
- 12 Apostles of Jesus, and 12 days of Christmas.
- In ancient Rome, the twelve lictors carried fasces of twelve rods.
- The number of twelve jurors in jury trials is depicted by Aeschylus in the Eumenides. In the play, the innovation is brought about by the goddess Athena, who summons twelve citizens to sit as jury.
- Games such as Backgammon have a long history of 12 points on each side of the gaming board, as evidenced in the XII scripta board in the museum at Ephesus.
I am pretty certain this is an incomplete list
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You would have to ask the original writers to get an answer of why they went with 1/10 instead of 1/12 for the spark. However I would guess that it is because the sorcerers who used it are based out of Soqotra which is off the horn of Africa and was controlled by Arabs since the 10th century (It was most recently part of Yeman). The ability to use sparks is a recent addition to their magic while the dominate forces of the island were Arabic so them using Arabic numbers makes sense.
Local lore has it converted to Christianity sometime in the 4th century and then to Oriental Orthodox in the 9th century so it has a long history of being some flavor of Christian. The oldest text and inscriptions on the island are from all over the place. It was a very popular temporary port for ancient traders.
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