Yes, there's absolutely nothing wrong with Destruction. Spells don't scale with your level because they don't need to. If they did then playing a mage would be very overpowered. Flames is still usefull. I use it a lot with my mage characters. It's not meant to be one of the strongest spells. Everybody can learn the spell. Still, I find it highly useful. Also, if flames or Firebolt doesn't do the trick for you then learn a new spell. Different spells work for different opponents.
There. is. nothing. wrong. with. Destruction.

Yeah, someday I may get to 90 Alteration and give it a try. It is just disappointing that there is no good form of mage armor for the levels in between first level and 90 Alteration. Putting three perk points into something becomes obsolete once you get dragonhide seems like a waste.

I don't agree, but whatever. I'm currently using a mod that adds 100 spells from past games and makes spells scale to your level, and I don't feel overpowered at all.

If that's what suits you then go right ahead. That's what mods are for, right? I don't use mods and have no problem doing damage without enchantments.

Agreed. I had a pure mage character that only wore robes. And man, the flesh protection spells are weak. I was never able to get the Dragonhide because the quest glitched and I couldn't get what was needed. It's also annoying to have to continually recast the spells. At a certain level and with a certain amount of perks you should be able to have at least something like Oakflesh protection at all times.

OR... they could have made an unarmored perk in the tree or had an unarmored tree unto itself. Otherwise, though the Alteration tree is solid.

As for Restoration, after getting in the habit of using it, it's awesome. I hate scrolling through my potion inventory and seeing 20 restore health potions and 7 fortify health potions. I still always carry some for especially hairy situations but Close Wounds eliminates the need for them more often than not.

I have not done much with restoration yet. So far the Fast Healing spell has been enough for me with four perks in restoration (novice/apprentice/regeneration and respite). . One of my characters tried close wounds but the extra casting time was throwing him off, so he switched back to fast healing. It is pretty quick to cast so I just cast it twice if I need to, and as a bocus I can sprint all the way from Riften to Whiterun with that set up and a quick couple of fast healings every once in a while. Respite is one of my favorite perks. Guess I agree with the OP that there is nothing underpowered by the Restoration school that I can see.

One can only preserve life. The other can be used for any means good or ill.

I think the answer's obvious.

Flames is not "useless" past level 10. Granted it DOES become underpowered very early. If you use the flames in short bursts you get equivalent damage compared to a constant stream. Shoot in short burst and conserve your magicka. Basically turtle with jets of flames. Its a very efficient way to do damage. Shield + Magic also works pretty well for the novice level destruction spells.

I'd say the runes spell becomes more useless than flames at high levels. It does a paltry amount of damage at high levels and alerts every enemy in the dungeon to your presence. I really like the idea of rune spells but don't like the way they were implemented at all, since they do relatively little damage at high levels and send every enemy immediately running at you. Shoot an arrow at the wall behind an NPC and everybody goes running to the wall where the arrow hit. The same NPC steps on one of your runes over by the wall and everyone comes running straight for you. Makes no sense.