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Magical Memory is more a Virtue for super reclusive types, and is mainly a roleplaying Virtue. (In that sense, it could almost be a Flaw, but you'd be hard-pressed to find very many SGs who could draw you into stories over it) Basically, it lets you protect the secrets to your own power in the most efficient and foolproof way possible; by destroying/not making lab texts for others to get their hands on.
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As for your spells point, well, that's true until you get older, but well, Twilight happens to the best of us, and losing spells to it can really suck.
The XP virtues are good up to 10 years beyond gauntlet, IMO. Many of the sagas I've been in have had a limit on the age of a starting magus, at gauntlet, or up to 10 years post gauntlet. Skilled Parens is probably the best of the bunch.
Not every SG is going to allow Extremely Complex Character generation rules on page 33. It requires a lot of adjudication on the part of the SG, determining which Arts are covered in the Roots, in Kevin's example. And then there's the whole discussion about what resources were available during the period before play begins. But yes, if you're going to use that optional rule, the XP virtues make much less sense.
Not so much reclusive as paranoid. 
It could be made better if, for example, it allowed a magus to commit a book on the Arts to memory after the first season of study, allowing the magus to study it (or copy it down) from memory in further seasons. Or commit a number of lab texts to memory in a season (say Latin x 20 levels), so that these can be used to help in spell invention down the road. That would make it of greater use for wandering magi.
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I can totally see a damaged-Gift magus apprenticing under a Redcap to become a Redcap. Apprenticeship need not last 15 years, either. The Order as a whole might see it as the 'only noble thing' a magus stripped of his Gift could do, following in Mercere's footsteps.
I think the same way.
I have also noticed that sagas, at least online, tend to start magi between 0 and 10 years past Gauntlet.
Strong Parens ==> 1 Art @ 10, 1 lvl 30 spell and 5xps. Or something else that is very useful. It combines wonderfully with an Affinity. Sure, another magus can catch up and have something cool, but during that time the Strong Filius 
can also improve. And a level 30 spell + a very strong Art is itself very cool.
Baccalaureate provides 90xps for Academic Abilities. This is great for ritual or ceremonial casters. It is also great in combination with SFB, whose xps can now be used to boost AA. It also allows you to take those 55-75xps normally used for AL and Latin and use them for Arts. Depending on the character, this is almost as good as SP and perhaps a tad better.
If Extremely Complex is involved, the best virtues depend greatly on the resources available. Is there a great teacher? Then being a great student is awesome. Is there a worthwhile library? Do seasons of "adventure" make sense? Lots of vis? Covenant in Faerie Aura? Etc.
Story seed: A retired but still fully functional Jerbiton tries to do this, in order to see the world....
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Latin and AL only. You are almost forced to got Latin 5 + AL 2, or Latin 4 + AL 4 with an extra 10 xp. I think it is a tad better since 30xp are harder to get than 30 spell levels and the Academic Reputation of 1 is a nice bonus.
Retired? Magus? I mean, it makes a little more sense with a Jerbiton, but... I didn't know "retirement" happened before Decrepitude 3-4. The idea is so foreign to all my beliefs about Magi.
I think that he means "retired" as in he decides to leave House Jerbiton and join House Mercere. Which is no problem from the perspective of House Jerbiton: it is a Societas so a magus can join or leave whenever they want.
"Joining" House Mercere is more problematic as Mercere is a True Lineage. But whether or not he can successfully negotiate for this to happen is where the story is. On the other hand, I'm not sure that he needs to. Serf's Parma; I had the feeling that any magus (whom House Mercere deems is suitable) could be commissioned to act as a "redcap", in much the same way that any magus can be commissioned to act as a Quaesitor. This doesn't change the House --- the magus is just doing the job.
Magi can cast a spell and detect the Gift. Magi can cast spells to detect lot's of things. But a Magus may not bother to use their detect dragon spell on the flying lizard they just saw incinerate their turb. When do you cast a spell and when do you feel safe to assume. As your quote illustrates Magi do make assumptions about the Gift. Like the presence of the Gift implies magical power. An assumption the quote characterizes as "basically and typically" right but of course that is not the same thing as always right.
Now wouldn't it also make sense that Magi might make other assumptions about the Gift. Assumptions that are typically but not always true. Like assuming a lot of magical power implies the presence of the gift. It is a natural assumption like the previous one. The amount each Magi ascribes to the assumption will vary as will the perception of the very relative concept of "A Lot of Magic Power". Sure the idea that a Magi might assume a simple village dowser is Gifted was a stab at a humorous exaggeration. But at what point might it happen. A minmaxed Myhtic Companion level Sahir more competent in his field then most Gifted members of his tradition could achieve, A broom riding Hedge Witch turning victims to frogs. A shapeshifter with several effectively used animal shapes and the Magical Air Flaw. A manipulative noble woman with enchanting voice and half of florence wrapped around her finger. A Natural Philosopher Charlatan trying to look like a wizard. A Faerie whole really thinks they are a WIZARD.
Well certainly there are specialists who pursue hedge wizards but everyone has to start somewhere. But it has always been my impression that all magi are encouraged to offer the ultimatum when encountering a potential. And not every magi will know the spell to detect the gift nor be able to spont it. They may not be as dramatic as my example but I think it's obvious mistakes will happen.
I'm actually playing a character with this virtue in the Base Camp saga. Admittedly it's never been of the slightest mechanical use whatsoever, but it's got a nice Tremere flavour (and I can see situations in which it could be mechnically useful).
Nyctophylax is one of those virtues that requires the SG to make use of it, in order for it to shine. IMO, I would consider, instead, reclassifying it as a Flaw, available only to House Tremere, and make them all have Nocturnal as the mechanical aspect of the flaw.
I meant "retired" in the sense that some Jerbiton magi stop pursuing magical power and leave their Hermetic labs and libraries to enjoy life/pursue a life well-lived/soak up culture/debauch/explore/compose/etc.
Ah, I see.
Still can't join House Mercere if he does that; but he could perhaps try to obtain a commission to do the job of Redcap.
I'm one who only likes the ECCGRs if all the players use them. Deciding what resources are available to characters isn't easy. And it pretty radically changes the calculus on a lot of virtues, particularly learning bonus virtues and the aforementioned XP virtues. Of course as a player it's not always easy to decide what is sensible; the urge to minmax is difficult to avoid.
Um why do you have a Queen of Creo Vis?
I have a personal vis source and I'm 25, Duh.
That being said it can refine character concepts and it can also be quite fun. I've often considered taking a page from the Playing Out the Childhood guidelines of the Apprentices book. Particularly how Skilled Parens is changed from providing X.P and spell points to improving the Source quality avalible from your Paren's Teaching. I really interesting rules hack for the Extremely Complex option would be to do similar things with other XP virtues. Instead of providing X.P. they provide improved sources for particular abilities.
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Wait, what?
I don't think it does what you think it does. If there are stats for a library and/or teachers, you don't use Skilled Parens. If you do use Skilled Parens, the implication is that the SQ of the teacher is 19, teaches Arts and Abilities 12 times and 3 seasons of spells, with the highest applicable lab total being 50. But, the Skilled Parens virtue doesn't improve the SQ of the parens, especially if that parens has stats.
Yeah, the last time I did this, even without particularly minmaxing, I ended up with 1,000 xp more than anyone else in the game.
Total Immersion of Latin and the local regional dialect, up to lvl 4? There's 50 + 50 xp.
Read the Roots for the Techniques and 1 of the Forms? There's 126 XP
Read the Branches for your favored Te+Fo for 2 seasons? There's an additional 40 xp or so.
Houserule "you get 2 xp of Area knowledge for every season you live in a location, up to lvl 3" - there's 90 xp, spread out over 3 areas.
Used Correspondence on a regular basis? There's another 50 or so, spread out over different skills.
Have a learning virtue? There's another 100 xp.
Storyteller says it's OK to have 10 adventure XP a year, as long as you write up a short paragraph describing what happened? OK. There's another 140 XP.
And so on.
Admittedly, the character ended up with some skills I never actually used in the Saga - Area Knowledge (Wales 3) and Living Language (Welsh 4) doesn't really do much if you're in the Black Forest, for example. But some players did raise an eyebrow or two.
And having enough xps to "waste" on something so essential is extremely worthwhile.
Yes. Or maybe he arranges to get himself recruited in one Tribunal without the House knowing that he's been a magus for a century...
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Wait, what? What!?
Actually I think your wrong. I think the rules in apprentices pretty much do exactly what I said they do.
Yes these rules, from the creating young characters section, say you cannot select the Skilled Parens virtue if your parens, covenant, and library, all have stats. But if out of those your parens isn't detailed then yes you can select the Virtue. Even, apparently, when the covenant and library are detailed
So you take Strong Parens for a PC fitting the criteria defined by that quote. What does it mean? Obviosly you can't just use the virtue from the core rules, that would be silly. Slap 60x.p. and 30 spell levels onto a character who by definition has yet to complete their apprenticeship. No of course not.
Then if the virtue doesn't have a chunk of xp and spell levels to arbitrarily tack on the PC what does the Skilled Parens Virtue have to offer? Well let's see what the book says right after my first quote.
Now you could say that is just there to illustrate what the implications of the 60xp & 30 spell levels are when applied to the standard apprenticeship mentioned later in the book. While I'm not going to quote the whole book, I don't think anyone reading page 10 of Apprentices should think that, because that comparison is already made in the paragraph above. No I think the later quote is there to help redefine what the Skilled Parens Virtue means to a young PC playing through their apprenticeship.