Preps and rune mages have almost always shared the relationship you've described, and runes work fine under the 'prep' system. A prep is merely a mechanic to help decipher and gauge the power of an attack or defense. It is not a unit of time. It isn't just 'preparing', or Corban's bubble den would also be prepping, which it currently isn't. Another word used in stead of prep is 'charge', which a rune is more than capable of.

You're allowed to quick-cast. That's not at all what I'm arguing. What you want to do is quick-cast, but it seems you are interpreting quick casting as prepping. Literally all you'd need to do is state that a rune is 'charging' up, and then let it off like a traditional 'prep'. Every single rune should not count as a prep proper, so unless you are charging those 'base level runes', then no, they would not count as charges or preps that would be factored in their power if put up against my prepped stuff. Because literally, you are saying all of your runes should auto count as a prep simply by initiating them, which brings me back to my earlier argument of 'simply mentioning/summoning something doesn't really count as a prep'.

Hell, and there are a million ways to prep using runes. Some people I've fought have used the 'prepping' phase to describe a seal/circles formation. Others make the circle and power it up after summoming, and so on in more creative ways that elude me atm.

Being able to 'prep' by just quick-casting  doesn't work for me, because on that logic almost everything in your post cold technically count as a +1, and I'd never be able to decipher what is and isn't a 'prep' using that logic.