As someone who has wanted to branch his PC experience into the realms of hardcore magic users, going from a Tanky Smiter to a Squishy Wiz Kid, I am often off put from doing so due to not having ice based magic to the extent of not having to still rely on fire based spells for the hard hitting damage.

Maybe I just haven't dove far enough into supplemental sources, maybe there are creative ways to use spells outside of "ice" specifics that rely on situational circumstances, but has anyone else ever wanted to play a Wizard that did NOT rely on Fireball for example? What about once you do get those 9th level spells, what if I didnt want to call down Meteors? Do I just have to homebrew flavor text everything with a DM to make them World Ending Chunks of Ice (aka asteroids)? Whats the deal with there being no real variety at this point? Why are there no alternatives to long lasting (in terms of spells being in the wizards section) spells in other elemental categories? This could technically be applied to other classes as well that deal with Magic, such as Elemental Druids (Control Weather is pretty legit but that's an upper echelon spell) 

Is it just me wanting too much variety or has WotC really left elements out of the rotation for diversity in the Wizards repertoire? 

Lets Talk About It 

Making multiple versions of the same spell for each damage type would more than quintuple the number of spells.

They made as many unique spells as they could (and occasionally come out with more). And there are only 6 more spells that do fire damage than there are that do cold damage (19 vs 25, with some overlap).

When you look at the amount of damage possible for Ice based magics (or those that inflict cold damage to be general) there is a clearly noticeable damage drop off compared to those that are Fire Based. In essence, this is incredibly discouraging to anyone to even want to use those spells, whether we like it or not "power/meta gaming" is just a relatively common aspect of building a character.

Quote from DxJxC >>

Making multiple versions of the same spell for each damage type would more than quintuple the number of spells.

They made as many unique spells as they could (and occasionally come out with more). And there are only 6 more spells that do fire damage than there are that do cold damage (19 vs 25, with some overlap).

 Also, there are only 4 spells (SRD) that are given to Wizards that include COLD for damage, not 19. 

Ray of Frost - base 1d8

The spell's damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 5th level (2d8), 11th level (3d8), and 17th level (4d8).

Chromatic Orb - base 3d8

 When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 1st.

Cone of Cold - base 8d8

When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 5th.

Freezing Sphere -  base 10d6 (situational spell that has multiple uses, relatively the most effective by far but late game)

When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 7th level or higher, the damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 6th.

 What about: ice storm

I can't see an issue with just some basic home brewing spells, I made a post about cantrip retooling to reflect different energy types, just take an existing spell be it fire based, lightning based etc and change it to cold and tweak any special effects they may have.

Fire ball becomes Snow ball: You conjure a small snowball and throw it at your target whee it explodes into shards of ice.

Lightning Bolt becomes a line of jagged ice that crystallizes on the ground and bursts upwards in a line damaging everything in its path.

You can even retool Grease into Ice Patch, instead of slick grease you coat the ground with ice....job done.

If it helps I'm happy to make up a list of spells based on that for you but it will take a couple of days.

Quote from Templar32 >>

 What about: ice storm

 I did that between classes earlier, so including Ice Storm, and the Prismatic Spray/Wall spells, there is 7 cold spells. The source I grabbed from earlier didnt list those as having cold damage for some reason. I'll need to see if I can go in and further edit those on the site itself