I can totally understand, and I use cloak spells all the time. In first person, frost and flame cloaks can obstruct your vision and make themselves very obvious. Lightning cloak and whirlwind cloak aren't nearly as bad in that aspect. Flame cloak is really swirly for some reason, the Dunmer racial power that does the same thing doesn't have as much swirly flames so maybe you could try that? Or you could try third person.
Well... they kinda are.
Would you rather summon a wolf that dies in one hit from bandits found in level 6 dungeons, or an otherworldly being of flame who can hurl firebolts and sports a flame cloak to boot? The latter costs a mere 30 gold. And Stormy can tank like a boss compared to some wolf.
Turn Undead is a great spell, not sure what peoples problem with it is...
It provides alot of Restoration experience and we all know what a PITA that spell school is to level.
If you raise a simple zombie you can spam turn undead at it to give resto a well needed pick me up, good way of getting that Respite perk earlier...
It is an awesome spell and the turn/repel spells I do use, but I only use them for an RP with most Restoration centered builds and characters.
I guess most people know this, but if the spell doesn't actually turn or repel due to the enemy being too high of a level, the enemy staggers, so it is almost like using your magic to "bash" with a "magic shield". Kinda cool.
There are other ways to power level Restoration, but they're not really better per se. For me a spell needs to have more function than just power leveling in order to get used outside of that context. Turning undead has always seemed a weak tactic compared to just, like... doing anything else. Say, bashing their skulls in, or lighting them on fire, or...