spells that you would never want.

[Ignimortis]

now that you mention it, we often find ourselves in fights against a number of foes who are equal in number and level or challenge rating... this may have colored my view of blasting magic.

Yeah, because a single CR = party level enemy is not a tough or interesting fight most of the time. Most DMs run harder fights, which does decrease blasting value, but keeps save-or-die value about the same, because it bypasses everything but saves, and saves don't scale as hard as HP.