Sorry if it was not clear, I was talking only for White Sand 1 2 3 books
For every other book, magic is the central part of the plot, the plot will not work if magic changes.
In White Sand, even if we replace sand magic with something unmagical like sword fighting, gun shooting, plot will still work.
Sand Magic does not do anything special in these books that cannot be achieved by the technology available with people at that time.