Ok, so... I may have made a rather huge mistake. As it turns out, I've had the wrong spell coefficient for Arcane Missiles for quite some time now... needless to say this changes a lot. I'll follow up on this later when I have more conclusive data, but right now deep arcane specs are looking VERY good...
Anyone who pays attention to Vontre's sig box should already know that he has the unmost distain for AM both as a spell and as a strategy. So just in case anyone missed the joke, this seems most definitely to be an April Fools prank. As you are well aware, there is a segment of the mage community that has developed an irrational fondness for AB and/or AM. It's just not nice to play with these peoples' feelings like that. You, sir, should be ashamed.