An issue with Transmutations

I have an issue with promethean that I want to talk about here, this is really the only failing of the game itself is the purchase of Transmutations. for clarity the rules for transumutations are on pg 117-18 of the core book. Honestly I can see the intentions of the designers here and how they were riding the sucess of the mage book, but they failed utterly in implementing the idea here. I'm talking of the way transmutations are purchased. For some background into the issue, in Mage, you have 6 points to spend on rotes, but lets say I buy a 3 dot rote from an arcanum I do not the first and second dot rotes like you do with vampire disciplines. So in practice a mage ends up with ususally 3 rotes at charcter creation (a level 3, a level 2 and a level 1). However a mage can make up for this by making his own spells. The reason I highlight this is that prometheans start with three points to spend on Transmutations, but rather then buying a level of a powers, lets say, Alchemicus 2, (like vampire disciplines, which would mean that they would have a level 1 and 2 power) they have to buy one specific power, (contiinuing the previous example you would have to buy either Degredation or Fortification) and not have any of the proceding powers. Written into the rules is a mechanic that encourages the purchasing of transmutation powers in a sequential order (check the sidebar on page 118-119 if your not sure what I am referencing) but I am unsure of how well the works in a game where you have the freedom to choose your powers, as it is a rather severe XP hit. In case this has confused anyone let me reiterate it.

-When creating a promethean you have 3 transmutation dots, one of which must be in an affinity transmutation
-When purchasing a transmutation you buy the specific number you are spending points on, for example if I buy Alchemicus 3 I ONLY get the third level power, a 2 dot and one dot power or 3 one dot powers.
-The game places an experience penalty on buying Transmutations out of sequence.

Now there is another unfortunate problem with Transmutations, frankly, about half of them blow chunks, I will point people at the Electricity powers, Alchemicus and Mesmerism, these three are awful primary choices and poor secondary choices. Even among the transmutations there are some individually awful powers. While its not as bad as Hunter for a high proportion of shitty powers, it comes a close second.

Now I've got some ideas on how to fix this. Since we arent playing crossover the powers do not need to be as balanced againt others in lets say a Vampire/Mage crossover, so my first idea is lets say you buy Alchemicus 3 and you can pick a 1 dot, 2 dot and 3 dot power much like vampire disciplines.

My second idea is to give prometheans 5 dots to spend on transmutations at character creation and bring the xp costs down to those of changeling (4, 8, 12, 16, 20 for affinity, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 for non affinity) and do away with that ridiculous xp penalty for not buying transmutations in sequential order.

I really wanna deal with this before we start playing
Cheers
Eric

I also have a minute problem with this system, at least at creation.

The house rule will be as follows.

Your first three transmutations are bought one for one (Much like vampire disciplines).

Anything after that goes by the rules presented in Promethean the created.

Ok, but what does this solve, it seems that we basically one extra power at character creation but does not adress any of the other issues for buying transmutations, specifically their XP cost is too high and there is a penalty for buying them out of sequence. Frankly I do not think this solution, while great during creation, adresses the true value of transmutations compared to XP as it is given in WOD games. As said before, about half of the printed transmutations are awful, with even some whole groups being just terrible, I think the XP cost should be lowered to that of Changeling (previously posted) since this is an all promethean game so interbalancing us with other Sup's is less important.

As a side note, vitreol can help off set these costs, but before we make a decision to use the status quo or alter the system we should figure out how much vitreol will be handed during this game

Cheers
Eric