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Whatever Richard Garfield may have said at one time about mana, it's too ingrained in the game now to change the way it works. All of the following would happen by allowing players to draw lands as a separate step, or use spells as lands:
-The difficulty of casting multicolored spells would be meaningless, therefore multicolored spells would not be special or powerful.
-As someone else already mentioned, land destruction would be pointless.
-Land fetching would be irrelevant.
-Manafixing would be pointless.
-Much like multicolored spells, 5+ CMC cards wouldn't be nearly as special or powerful.

I'm sure there are other aspects that I'm not thinking of at the moment. Changing this one part of the game would have far-reaching ramifications for other mechanics. It would be like Major League Baseball switching to teeball. I understand the frustration of the OP, but you can't change the way mana works and I feel pretty confident saying it will never be changed in any incarnation of the game.

This thread is weird to me.  I honestly don't think land is that big an issue if you build your deck properly.  If you are consistently having trouble playing your cards, news flash, you probably have too many high cmc cards.  It really is that simple, there is nothing broken about mana.

As for the cards as resources idea, wouldn't that make cards like pernicious deed and DoJ over powered? (totally against the idea, but curious anyway)

edit: and instants/sorceries become useless... 

Jan 10, 2013 -- 10:55PM, falclon wrote:

Jan 10, 2013 -- 9:27PM, Burzmalli wrote:

1. The difficulty of casting multicolored spells would be meaningless, therefore multicolored spells would not be special or powerful.
2. As someone else already mentioned, land destruction would be pointless.
3. Land fetching would be irrelevant.
4. Manafixing would be pointless.
5. Much like multicolored spells, 5+ CMC cards wouldn't be nearly as special or powerful. 

It is true, but (for the sake of discussion, at least) - doesn't it feel like the tools mentioned in the points 3 and 4 are acting like relatively small patches for much bigger problem? They are all cards too and all of them can be at the bottom of the library. You can change smth with your the weakest  cards (if the strongest ones are at the bottom), but simply can't do anything without mana. And your opponent knows that all the time. So the game is ruined for all sides.

#3 and #4 are what make #1 and #5 relevant. This is the point that I'm trying to make: M:TG is like an ecosystem. It has evolved over the past 20+ years to its current state and making a change like this (either of them) will collapse it. It's like saying, "hey, bees are annoying. Let's kill all the bees." Well now you've reduced the heartiness and yield of important crops. Now food prices are going up. The world isn't ending, but it has gotten a lot less complex and pleasant to live in.

So I like the idea about

Jan 9, 2013 -- 7:41AM, True_Believer_02 wrote:

No lands at all. The player uses other cards as lands to provide mana.

Still for the sake of discussion - it covers pounts 1, 2 and 5 (more or less). Your units = your manabase. Reckless rush = Phyrexian Obliterator all over the place. Removal = land destruction. Dual coloured units = dual coloured lands. Special lands (like Cathedral of War ) can be used as enchantments.

There's a game that sort of exists like that already: the Marvel VS. card game. It isn't bad, but it isn't even close to as deep or complex as Magic. 

P.S.)

Jan 10, 2013 -- 9:27PM, Burzmalli wrote:

 like Major League Baseball switching to teeball

 

And now it is a good chance that baseball stars (no matter how great they are) can't go to the field, because there are no land there to stand on. Just so.

That analogy doesn't make any sense. I'm talking about mana as complexity and you're talking about it as a playing surface.

Anyway, as DJ already pointed out, the people who complain about this the most just don't seem to grasp proper deck-building strategies. Why are you all loading your decks up with so many 5+ CMC cards?  Why are you playing with 70+ card decks? There are valid ways to play under those conditions, but you have to support them.

The Cathedral of War mention reminds me of some other factors to consider. Putting the Cathedral's effect on an enchantment just makes it vulnerable to enchantment hate. The Cathedral is special specifically because it's a land and not subject to the same kind of threats that enchantments face. And what about other ability lands, like ones that become creatures? Do we get rid of them? We have no idea how they would be affected by either of the changes being considered in this thread.

Magic is not perfect, by any means, but I don't think that either of the suggestions in this thread even come close as viable solutions to make it better.

This sounds like it would be potentially balance-breaking for many cards.  Some powerful creatures are cheap, because they require multicolor mana.  Some cards' special abilities like Viridian Emissary , or Ob Nixilis, the Fallen become pointless.  I like current mana system.  It adds another layer to the game.