I'm a new player to CF. I started just a few months ago, I've spent a good amount of time exploring, a good amount of time testing various classes to feel them out, and I spent a lot of time reading things in CF related sites to get more info.
In those few months I got to a point where no one really can pin me for a newbie anymore. At least while ranking, I seem to know more than most of the people I group with. (Can navigate most ranking areas blind, mapped about 1/3rd of Thera completely, know where all the cabals are, know a few area explores, know at least 1/3 more of Thera enough to get around them.) But I still see myself as lacking in a few important areas.
One of the main areas I'm seriously lacking in is information concerning a/b/s. I've found a few, been told a few, but as I started playing after the changes to a/b/s went in, it's not easy for me to know for certain if a place has a wand or not, even if I have a very strong suspicion that it does.
When I come upon a place like this (and I've come across quite a few) I really wish I had started a year ago as opposed to 5 months ago so I would know for certain.

I'm wondering if it would be feasible to have a placebo wand in place of the real thing in a/b/s locations when they're over the limit, just so new explorers like me would still have the same chance for finding a wand, the chance that people that have been here a while have enjoyed for a while.

Maybe make it so the wand is always there, you can ID it but past the 3rd one it says it has 0 charges? Would fit into the help files that say if a/b/s gets to be too well known it loses power.

I'll suggest a somewhat toned down version of this. In what you describe, the person who finds the placebo wand discovers a number of important things besides just that there's a wand in that location. They discover what *kind* of wand and the wand's name, so that if they see someone else using it then they know where that person got it.

Instead, I propose that when someone looks in a container (or kills a mob) that *can* contain a wand they get an echo like, "You detect a residual aura of magic about this place", or for mobs, "You detect a residual aura of magic about this sacrifice" (when they sacrifice the corpse). These echos could be made contingent on the person having "detect magic" up, granting even further utility to the detect magic spell.

It would save us players a lot of time.
In case it is guaranteed, of course, that nothing but a/b/s can
produce this "radical aura of magic".