This thread got me thinking about wish spell:
http://www.adom.de/forums/project.php?issueid=3363
The thing is that casting wish either from the spellbook or from memory has a ridiculous cost in form of -10 to a random stat.
What this means is that characters that could perhaps achieve a one time feat of casting wish due to a lucky potion/wand of wonder use, will never do that because the cost exceeds the gain.
Either the wand or the potion might grant ~1-100 spell knowledge of wish.
The exact amount is irrelevant, as casting the spell will invariably always consume all of those points, as each time it's cast, it eats ~300 points.
So, your one in 10 characters that was lucky (or is it even less frequent to get some wish spell knowledge in this fashion?), has actually not been that lucky at all because of the extra costs involved.
Nothing that you can wish for will be worth the equivalent of losing 10 points in a stat, especially if it's way past 25 and thus virtually impossible to rebuild without multiple rare potions.
The only reason to ever cast a wish from the spellbook is if you want to cast it hundreds of times, as in by an archmage wizard.
At that point the -10 to random stat is of no importance as you increase HP/PP directly.
So what's the point?
Those who can cast it once will not do it; those who can cast it many times will not be bothered by the loss of stats they will rebuild soon enough.
No character class other than a wizard and perhaps a necromancer/priest, will reach the PP/HP requirements even at level 50 with large item buffs and other useful bonuses from stat boosts etc, without extensive grinding.
So then what is the point of all that grinding to get the required PP/HP, when subsequently you get a random stat ruined?
You're better off spending half an hour real time on UC cavernous levels waiting for a random RoDS or WoW to drop or just dipping PoRC and then getting potions of exchange in D:1, then dip rings on D:8.
In the former case, during all that wish hunting, you'll inevitably get other items - rings, potions, scrolls, wands - that will more than make up for the time wasted on looking for the wish.
In the latter case, you might even get 2 or three wishes this way and at virtually no cost other than time and perhaps some corruption.
Double gain and no stat drain.
As for an archmage - you still need to either wait for silvernight as a lawful character, use the special "tingling sensation room" or have mana battery. From what I know only two of those effects stack.
That leaves us with 1 instance of a PC that can cast the wish and is going to do so repeatedly with complete disregard for -10 stat decrease versus 21 instances of PCs that will never even consider casting it because of the unbearable consequences.
That's a prime example of poor game design to me.