I'm going through the same process at the moment :-) My experience is similar to Olor's - some spells a learnt straight away, some take a while; however, whilst I've not got hard evidence, my feeling is that the AF hand pieces are a considerable help. Once I got those (and basic AF will help, not even reforged) my learn rate seemed distinctly higher. Not scientific I know, but that has definitely been my impression.

The other approach I've been taking is to look at which traits I really want (for me that's been regen, refresh, triple attack, TH, MAB, ATK, Fast Cast, Dual Wield to start with :-)) and concentrate on those spells

Hope this helps

Art.