Well, you can use rods if you play a Tiefling (prehensile tail variant), and quite frankly... you want to be playing a Tiefling anyway, it has perfect stats (if dex-based; no race gives str/int, so str-based has to suck it up just as much as with any other race choice) and great racial features. So that's not much of an issue.
Losing out from haste is annoying, that ruling was pretty recent and IMO very poorly argued from a rules and logic standpoint. I would think many DMs would houserule that away, but even if they don't, as long as you're using melee touch spells, you're not falling behind on attacks, at least. Speed enhancement is overpriced and not really relevant to...anything.
2H is definitely better, though Dervish Dance for MAD-reduction and/or Crane Wing to reward 1H style makes it less of a gap. I don't even think a Magus should be focusing on physical damage, he'd be better off finding ways to have his attacks impose debuffs (for example, blade of mercy trait + Enforcer feat), the optimized Shocking Grasp is where the damage will mainly come from.
Casting in threatened area: Again, concentration isn't that hard, and in PF you're also allowed to cast touch spell, move to melee, then deliver the touch spell. Which can help sometimes. Also, Hexcrafter can use Prehensile Hair to do spells or even make his attacks from reach when it's an issue. And most Magi will pick up Lunge at level 9 or so.
You need the level 2 class feature to attack through your weapon w/ a spell, so you can't actually do that at level 1...
I don't think any of that makes Spell Combat bad... the recent haste ruling is definitely a kick in the pants, though.
