This is just an opinionated post on why i love the auramaster
From my experience so far the auramaster seems to me an essential asset to any party going through improved anvil, his improved caster speed makes him a lifesaver in any battle situation and the extra spells he gets makes him an excellent damage dealer and great defender. Right now with cernd's upgraded cload, ring of protection and helm of defense he basically saves every time combined with his defense spells make him a great tank against mages and his faster casting time makes heal a incredibly useful spell in battle (saved my fighters so many times from those damn skeleton lords).

This in my opinion though makes all the other druid classes underated... because really having low health, low strength(sif he needs any) and the ability of not wearing armour, natural resistance(he has all the resistance spells anyway) and immunity poison and shapeshift(which is useless anyway) is a small price to pay for the bonuses you get in return.

So i would like to know other opinions on this.... is the auramaster too weak(i doubt it), overpowered, or do the druid classes need a makeover to match it.

With regards to your topic title: yes, I have.

Auramasters have rather great advantages when it comes to spellcasting. However, one major benefit clerics have over druids is the Greater Restoration spell... the casting time for this is shorter than what even Auramasters can manage with Heal, and of course, it affects all party members and isn't affected by Spell Turning.

For your comparison of the Auramaster with other Druid classes, I think that some were weaker in the vanilla game anyway. In addition, the Auramaster cannot dual class, so if I were to play a non-Auramaster Druid, I would dual a fighter to a druid or use a multi-class one for greater melee advantages (the usage of the IA Druid items are not limited to single-class Druids).

Btw, some ppl also like the Bard (Haer'Dalis) with Eternal Melody... high character levels (for Remove Magic), permanent Improved Alacrity and reduced spell casting time of 2. Too bad it's spell progression's going to be nerfed in IA v6.

Well...
I believe that Auramaster is great, but not as a custom, or protag. They can never be as powerful as Cernd can get. I Also finished IA several times, only one time did I have Cernd with me. I believe he is an exellent addition to any party, cloak can be upgraded early and with him, you can easilly finish lvl1 and, to an extent, lvel2 of WK before you go to spellhold. And yeah, Cernd can tank like no other. Cast imp.hate on him, that "contact with nature", his "aura of invulnerability" and "Wish" for hardiness on everyone, + "Regeneration" on him, he gets unkillable in melee.
I find "Regeneration" spell (which all druids have) usually even more useful then "Greater Restoration", to be honest.

i havent got him to the point where he can cast 7th level spells but golly never knew he has aura of invulnerability and wish.... that just makes him sound even more kickass lol, cant wait till i get him leveled and get him the circlet of flowers, hes going to be an end game monster.

Did I miss something? What do you mean by this? How could he be able to cast wish?

Auramatsers can't cast Wish.

I played Cernd in my 4.2 run. I found auramaster extremely useful in SoA (except hardest fights at end of SoA), but he was much weaker in high end game. As LZJ pointed out, Greater Restoration is much more useful than Heal from Auramester with lower casting time, and much more useful than Regeneration. Also they are lack of offensive ablities when you encounter with those enemies, who are immune to fire and magic damage... Elemental princes were weak, happily they will be improved in v6. Lets see how offensive can be an auramester against Skeleton Lords/Grandlords, golems, rakshashas... even high level human enemies have many immunities...
I found Haer'Dalis or a custom blade much better than an auramaster, when they have Ethernal Melody, high level Remove etc... With those nerfed bard spell progression in v6, blades will be maximum mediocre characters, other bards will be very weak.

So all in all auramesters are the best single class druids, but there are some classes/kits in IA, which are stronger than they.

Auramaster can't "Wish", of course. But a mage can! So, take both! I believe mage (sorc) + auramaster is a very nice arcane setup for any party. I wouldn't agree that "Greater Restoration" is more useful. In some battles, yes, but not all. I agree that Auramaster's usefulness tends to weaken in late-game, when you've got Chain Contingencies to fire 3x ruby ray in an instant, Improved Alcatry etc. and when party priest hits 25+levels so he can cast 5 7th lvl spells. But even then, he is still useful for select few tough opponents, and his mirror image/ironskins makes him still a great front-line healer. Auramaster is for me great in early and mid-game, since he can cast "Heal" more often than a cleric with same amount of experience. Emotion, mass cure, Chaotic commands are always nice too. I tend to keep Cernd close to my sorc/mage so he can insta-cast "Death Ward" since so many mages fire 3xfinger of death in a Chain Con, and poor mages have basically no chance of surviving that. Besides that, Cernd practically ensures that no one in your party will ever get imprisoned.
In end-game battles, I would take a cleric over Auramaster any day.
I agree with Shadan that a blade is a kick-ass character, in many ways more powerful than a f/m, which is a bit stupid I must say. Their Thac0 should really be capped at 10, as it was in vanilla. This way, (8th lvl spells, permanetnt imp.alcatry, a fighter's thac0, most powerful remove magic, +2 spells per level etc) blade is actually more powerful (and with offensive spin, far more leathal (who needs GWW? imp.haste + Scarlett ninja+Crom Fayr+spin =8 apr,max dmg done.) than a multi f/m can ever get in IA. + it's very hard for enemies to dispel buffs a bard places on your fighters.
I would leave bards with 3 or 4 6th lvl slots for some spells, but that should really be the limit for them.
They'll still be useful for "remove magic" and tanking golems and skeletons.

After reading through these posts about the auramasters lost potential in the end game, begs the question should i drop cernd for imoen at spellhold?

Depends. If you've got a dual-class or single class cleric, and no pure mage/sorc, I would. But hey, I would drop both Valygar and Cernd for Imoen, she's way more useful (for me) than either one of them.
The thing is, from my experience reading forums here, most people play something like this:
1)Vagrant
2)fighter type who also uses 2 wpns - pure class, multi f/t or f/m
3)fighter type for 2-h wpns - usually berserker, or inquisitor
4)some kind of dual-class cleric
5)mage or sorc
6)? - either Auramaster (Cernd) or thief-mage or another mage pure-class, or some multi class with mage in it, bard etc.

Cernd is more useful than sorceror during spellhold, he can heal a lot and you'll need that. In ToB, his usefulness is not that great. But even in final battle, he is still useful for his summons (crap, but buy you a round or two to recuperate) and castings of "Regeneration".
I believe you should should check out for yourself, you can always drop him in ToB and pick Imoen up there. There are battles where Cernd is actually more useful then Imoen.