Not having Astral Projection is a huge loss though...
When you astral project you can move at a speed of 100m per combat turn and still count count as "walking" (this speed let you look for specific things and will not give you any negative movement speed dice) or up to 5000m per combat turn if you "run". Long distance travel is super fast. Maybe minutes for locations on the same continent and a few hours will get you anywhere in the world.
You can even move through walls, people(*), ceilings, vault doors... you name it (the only limitations being astral barriers and moving through the earth).
(*)To notice someone projecting through your aura make a Perception + Intuition (4) [Mental] Test (+2 dice for awakened characters). Similar to Perceiving subtle Magic.
Here are a few examples what you can do:
- Scout around a corner. Spot an ambush. One action phase.
- Scout through a wall. Spot an ambush. One action phase.
- Scout ~100m of a corridor. Noticing all security cameras, drones, security patrols. One combat turn.
- Scout ~30m per comba turn, looking through all walls, floors and ceilings on the way. One combat turn.
- "run" through a complex at a speed of 5000m per combat turn. Looking for patrols. One combat turn.
- Scout a roof top, zoom over to a crane, zoom over to another roof top. Scout for snipers laying in ambush.
- Find a patrol, from astral plane summon a spirit, use astral plane Line of Sight to order spirit to manifest and attack patrol.
- ...if spirit dies, summon a new spirit. Repeat until every single guard in the complex is dead. You can even do this from your apartment or while taking a nap in your team's van that is on route to the complex you just solo raid.
Mages also get a very high initiative while projecting, rival that of a wired street sam.
Use some of the tips above and I promise you that your GM will make sure that security mages are suddenly not at all as uncommon as they might have been in earlier episodes of your campanie 
MAs can still see astrally if they please, so that would mean being able to see enemies around corners, not that it matters since basic non-implanted tech can do that no problem. That spirit summoning stuff would lead to your astral signature sticking out like a Troll at a Humaniclub event. A lot of that might not work because your GM WILL have astral protection. A lot of this applies to the astral overwatch role that Mages may take, but say I wanna be a spellslinger? There is little to no reason not to be a MA as it is, unless you want your Mage to make heavy use of Astral Projection, which could be of very little help depending on the campaign. Projection is too much of a variable in usefulness to make up for the fact that an MA can do everything else a Mage can do, but with Adept abilities also.
And, on top of all of that, what about balancing for the Adept side? How should a Adept feel when the Mystic Adept can do all the cool special abilities they can, plus throw a fireball and heal?
With all that, it is clear that as it is now, MAs are overpowered. The difference is enough to make the other classes feel weak, because the class that is supposed to be a balance between the two, is able to keep up with the specialists no problem.
They've said a few times already that when it talks about something for adepts in the book, that includes mystic adepts. Power point for buying magic, taking power points instead of metamagic, it's all there.
Where?_? Can't remember reading that.
I cannot recall the book saying that in any point either. In fact, usually it would say Mystic Adepts and Adepts.
