- You'd have hotkeys 1-6. This would accommodate 18 skills, the maximum possible number (as magician with all of their pets).
- Battle, Attack, Meditate, Hide, Track, etc would move to the 2nd smaller panel.
- All class skills would be available all the time. Buffs. Pets. Everything.
- When you enter combat only the 2nd panel would change to combat functions as they are now: Add Monster, toggle attack, run, etc

This would be a fair amount of work, but probably worth it eh!?

sounds good to me. Though it hasn't happened to me in a long time, being able to resummon a pet mid fight would be huge for early mages at least.

Would also give meaning to buffs/pets having mana costs.

Just leave the buttons large enough to press on my ipad and I will be happy...=)