Let's consider Animate Rope. I know it's a 1st level spell, but I wonder if it would be broken as a cantrip.

It's action economy is punishing--move action to throw or place the rope, standard to cast, move action to give a command. And for all that, you get to entangle or trip an opponent, or to boost a Use Rope check. If the target fails a Reflex save, that is.

Sure, there are Bards who run whip shenanigans that use Animate Rope. If they have it as a cantrip, I think that's okay actually--the action economy is still the same, and they get to do their highly situational trick more often.

If we move away from magic mart, we start looking at whether spells are worth their level-ed slot. And I think a lot of them aren't.