MP Regen is better in Book 2, granted. I haven't mapped out the whole table, but it looks something like this:
Perception + Meditation.... MP regen rate
16... 1/22 rounds
20... 1/18 rounds
30... 1/10 rounds
38... 1/4 rounds
40... 1/2 rounds
42... 1/round
Somewhere between 48-50, you reach 2/round, and I assume somewhere beyond that you reach 3/round and so on, although it looks like the gap between increases is starting to get bigger.
Here's the problem for Meditation. You get 3 skill points and 3 attribute points per level. There are plenty of things to do with your skill points, but after adding to INT and WIS to get spells, most of the attributes are a waste of time -- most of their bonuses are inferior to the bonuses you get from investing in skills, so you are really left with boosting your carrying capacity (Str), your HP (End), or your MP and MP regen rate (Per). Whereas the things you can do with skill points are a bit more exciting. So it would seem to me that unless you want to go crazy on MP Regen, just investing in Perception will give you plenty of regen rate... you can keep dumping in it until you get to 2/1 or beyond.
Can use even more, still have to run around to regen during battles.