Wizard woes

[teai]

I've been stuck at lvl 35ish on all caster classes, Mage, necro, ench, and several melee classes as well.

I decided it would be a great change to try something off the wall and chose to play a wizard. I also sunk my life savings into Jboots for some reason around lvl 10.

I am stuck at lvl 21 with the endless cycle of nuke until no mana, hide, then come back and repeat with some icy wanding in between.

Does wizard get more fun or did I make a terrible mistake? I am kind of stuck with it because of the Jboots, and would feel terrible to sulk away to another char.