Or you could just play a male character?

Why should I have to play a character type I would rather not play because of a stupid sexist rule in the game system? (There is a reason I put this house rule as #1; it is the one I am, by far, most likely (in fact, I think certain) to use.)

Roleplaying-wise it was explained in the actual pen-and-paper rulebooks this way: Mages spend much of their downtime (while resting, etc.) poring over their manuscripts and tomes and learning more about the arcane arts in general. The reward of doing this is that a mage can select one spell of his choice to add to his spell book at level up, provided it is A) of a spell level he can cast after level-up, B) from a school of magic he has access to, and C) the DM allows that spell (the DM always has the last say).

So, yes -- it may appear cheap, but it actually isn't. It's one of the mechanics to balance the game, seeing how divine spellcasters (clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers) automatically gain access to all spells of a new spell-level when they reach a level to cast new spells.

So you can't play males because of a "stupid sexist rule"?
BTW, I'm sure sexism wasn't the reason for the rule, but rather realism.

Here are some of my house rules:

1. I can reroll attributes as often as I want, but I do NOT get to modify the attributes to set them all to their maximum scores. Instead I reroll until I get a good amount of medium to high scores, and then modify them like this: for every point I raise an attribute, I lower another attribute by one point. Exceptional Strength can be increased by 10 points for every point I lower another attribute.

2. No hacking of any sort. And yes, this means that as late as SotSB (but usually as early as CotAB), my party will consist of five humans and either a dwarf fighter/thief or - more likely - an elf thief/magic-user.

3. No evil characters from CotAB onwards if there's a paladin in my party. I generally don't play evil characters, so that's not much of an issue anyway.

4. No dual-class combo that's not available as multi-class option. For example, dual-classing from fighter to cleric, magic-user, or thief is fine because fighter/cleric, fighter/magic-user, and fighter/thief are existing multi-class options, but no dual-classing with anything involving paladin, and rangers can be dual-classed from/to only with cleric.

5. No "4th-level warrior abuse". This means that hiring 4th level warriors from the training hall in PoR, unequipping their armors and dropping their arrows so they rush enemies instead of using bows, getting them killed that way, and then transferring their two-handed swords+1 and plate mails+1 to my characters is not allowed. Doing that is incredibly cheap, although very, very tempting and useful early in the game when you're about to clear the slums of Phlan.

There are some issues with some of those rules:

1. Not every point of exceptional strength is equal. I would suggest allowing Strength to be raised or lowered by one level on the table (so, for instance, 18/01 through 18/50 could be raised to 18/51, for instance) for each point taken from another stat. (Note that going from 18/90 to 18/00 would require two steps.) Also, not everyone has use for every stat, leading to the use of dump stats. If your fighter (who you do not intend to dual into a mage) has 3 intelligence, does that hurt your fighter at all? (Also, does Charisma have any use in any of these games?)

2. The issue here is that the rules favor male characters, which I see as sexist. I can understand not wanting to cheat around the racial level limits, but when the game punishes you for a choice that should be just cosmetic (and not affect gameplay), that's where I draw the line. (Incidentally, I am actually tempted to mod Elminage Gothic to remove gender restrictions from equipment in that game, and I actually know how to do so.)

Well, maybe he did some experimenting in a laboratory in his wizard tower? But he'd need equipment, reagents and a controlled environment. That's hardly something that could be done at a campsite in the middle of a dungeon (nobody could carry that kind of equipment around), trying to keep a low profile.

AD&D is an RPG system for parties. It creates archetypes and if you combine them properly, you'll get a well rounded party, that can handle almost any situation. AD&D was not created to control only one character, so if you do that, of course you do get different results depending on your character. Some classes will have an easier time in the dungeon than others. AD&D was never supposed to be balanced if you only control one character. Going through the dungeon as a single class mage can be very difficult, but that is not the mage's fault, because this archetype was not designed to adventure on his own.

By the way: I use lots of mage scrolls in dungeon hack, because after I've scribed the first one, all the other ones just clutter up my inventory.

As a side note, I actually happened to read about how 5th edition D&D handles the cleric versus mage issue. Both casters can use rituals to cast certain spells without using spell slots, but clerics need to have prepared the spell. Mages, however, only need to have the spell in their spell books. I think that is an interesting way of balancing out the fact that clerics get free access to all their spells.

Another interesting thing I noticed is that spell preparation and slots works exactly like in an Nintendo DS Wizardry-like called The Dark Spire: you prepare one spell per level plus casting stat bonus, and you can use your spell slots to freely cast the spells you prepared. (One difference: 5e lets you cast low level spells in higher level slots, Dark Spire does not. On the other hand: Dark Spire has the Cast Quickly and Cast Carefully options when casting spells.)

That doesn't really bother me because it reflects real life. Males of the human species usually are physically stronger than females. Also, provided that both receive the best training and exercise possible, males will still be physically stronger in general. As such, it's a non-issue for me. It's like complaining that the sky is blue - which is considered a masculine color - instead of red, a feminine color.

Edit: Nevermind. Figured it out myself.

I don't think it's something worth arguing about either way. If you want to get around the various stat or level caps it is absolutely trivial to use Gold Box Companion to do it, and if you don't then you don't have to do a thing.

Also as a fun fact it is only relatively recently that blue and pink are considered to be masculine and feminine, respectively. It was actually the other way around until, I think, some time in the 40s.