Eschew material components is literally useless for a non-arcane spellcaster. I am reminded of this thread elsewhere.
You are begging the question about the mechanical niche. You’ve set the mechanical niche as a requirement for some reason without asking yourself why a class needs to provide a mechanical niche. I’ve been on the forums and seen the back and forth for a long time on these issues. Here is another quote from the mailing list, from a fellow called A Hughey.
Come up with an athasian reason that actually works (the pristine tower warped me is obviously not going to be accepted) and a few examples and then people will be more willing to consider it. I know I would.
Many folks have done this several times over the past couple years with rather dissapointing results. There has been lots of resistance that usually breaks up into two main camps.
The first camp has a fairly rigid view of Athas (colored strongly by 2nd ed prejudices) that ends up with a “it wasn’t in the boxed set, it shouldn’t exist” kind of attitude. Many of their arguments hinge on things like the need for spellbooks or some other thing without which Athas won’t make sense. (Flip and I have both demonstrated the flaws in the literacy argument.)
The second camp resembles the first and often has similar arguments, but their main reservation is actually a dislike for the sorceror class itself, Athas or no. Of course, this is a gross generalization covering a variety of opinions, but these are the two main groups oppposing the sorcerers in Dark Sun proposals.
Below are links to my huge post on sorcerors in the archives. It is very rough and just a proposal I made to counter those who said “write it up and we’ll take a look at it.” The most popular kind of response indicated they’d consider it, but only if sorcerors were saddled with some kind of mcguffin to mark them as sorcerors (talisman, tattoo, funny hat, etc.).
An article here or there won’t make it better when people insist that Sorcerers must be descendants of dragons or supernatural beings, even though it doesn’t say that in 3E at all. Even if that were the case, sorcerous powers could be fluffed as force of will or personal practice. For what its worth, here is the 3.5E fluff for Sorcerer.
Sorcerers create magic the way a poet creates poems, with inborn talent honed by practice. They have no books, no mentors, no theories - just raw power that they direct at will. Some sorcerers claim that the blood of dragons courses through their veins. That claim may even be true in some cases - it is common knowledge that certain powerful dragons can take humanoid form and even have humanoid lovers, and it’s difficult to prove that a given sorcerer does not have a dragon ancestor. It’s true that sorcerers often have striking good looks, usually with a touch of the exotic that hints at an unusual heritage. Others hold that the claim is either an unsubstantiated boast on the part of certain sorcerers or envious gossip on the part of those who lack the sorcerer’s gift.
I am putting in bold the parts that cast serious doubt on supernatural ancestry.
The point I am making is that the demand for proof that 3E classes fit in Dark Sun is backwards. Compatibility should be assumed until proven otherwise.