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Initial assumption: you can cast spells with just your mind

The only thing we know is from the rules is that you can use an ingredient to increase the power of your spell. But the rules don't tell us how. And they don't tell us what else could be involved, except by process of elimination.

Symbolism tells us that that a sorcerer needs a free hand to shape symbols in the air if they don't have any pre-prepared. Ergo, non-Symbolism sorcerers and druids don't need to do any hand movements, so there's no assumed somatic component in standard spells.

Similarly, there are a few power words, which are fast actions and presumably the action of the sorcerer saying "fzzot!" or something. I think it follows from there that you don't need to say anything to cast a spell (although obviously calling your attacks has a certain appeal); in fact, given that there's a druid stealth spell (Cat's Paw), at least some times you explicitly shouldn't say anything to cast the spell.

You must spend a fast action to ready your grimoire, but then you can cast a spell from your grimoire in exactly the same time as you'd be able to cast it from memory. So I think it therefore follows that you are not reading the spell from the grimoire, let alone speaking magic words as a result, but you merely have some kind of boost from some kind of pre-recorded "oh yeah, this is what the spell is all about" thing built into your grimoire.

How near/new do ingredients need to be?

There's a bunch of things that you can burn up if you want your spell to be better. Piece of chalk, divining rod, piece of cloth, etc. - all sorts of tangible physical objects that are easy to have in a hand.

But Dispel magic is a reactive power word, and the ingredient is iron filings. Do you need to first have a handful of iron filings before you can cast the spell with a bonus, as a reaction? Or can you tap into some iron filings that are near enough (e.g. if you're standing on a pile of them, or they're in a pouch on your utility belt that you expect them to be in - so if that pouch was empty but you had iron filings elsewhere, tough, that wasn't what you were thinking about so you don't get the bonus)?

Transfer requires a drop of your blood. How recent does it have to be; does it have to be bubbling off a vein, or can it be in a glass vial or something? If the latter, how often does it need to be refreshed?

Cleanse Spirit requires a burning candle, which implies that you need two fast actions to get it ready: one to fish it out of your pack / your superhero bandoliers, and another to light it. This seems unfair.

Immolate can use a torch or an open fire, which implies that you don't need to be holding the material component in your hand (how could you?).

Blood Channelling says you must sacrifice your living victim before you cast the spell. But how soon before? The minimum expenditure is 1 WP, and you get at least 2 WP to spend on the next spell, but if you rolled a 6 you'd get 4 WP to spend, so it's a minimum net +1-+3 WP for a cost of one action. Assuming a fast action to grab the victim and a slow action to kill it, that gets you to an additional net +2 WP. That's useful as a final resort - grab rat out of your pocket, stab it, cast a final overpowered spell in defiance of all odds - but it seems to me that a villain surrounded by the corpses of their recently-dead cult followers should be able to tap into their blood for quite a while before the blood runs out or an enterprising PC summons an indoor thunderstorm that washes all the blood away.

(1) Ingredients need to be near, but you have to know where they are

This encourages the superhero utility belt approach: you have a whole bunch of individual pouches with ingredients individually-portioned for the spells you know you're going to need them for. Or, if you're standing on a pile of corpses, you just need to check how much blood is left and what your next source is going to be, which should normally be a free action.

(2) You need to focus on the ingredients but don't need to touch them

You can still do the standing-on-a-pile-of-corpses thing, but you can also make your grimoire really cool because as well as it providing a magical reminder of what the spell is all about, it also contains ingredients.

I think most people when hearing "grimoire" will think "big hardback book with many, many paper or parchment pages", but I don't think that's justified. You open your grimoire at the right page and you cast the spell; there's no thumbing through many pages or reading out stuff. The process of copying a spell into your grimoire takes ages, and there's a Scriptorium building that explicitly helps you. I think it reasonable to assume that the "page" that you copy the spell into has had the spell cast into it many times. I suspect that if it started out as parchment or paper, it's now much sturdier, because it's now full of magic.

And the thing is, if there's only a small number of pages in your grimoire, and each of them is pretty hefty (because they've had a whole bunch of magic cast at them repeatedly), it's not a huge stretch to say "there are a few compartments in each page for ingredients". Opening the grimoire at a specific place reveals two facing pages; as well as mystical markings that will almost certainly shimmer into mystical gold filigree when the caster does stuff, there's a small transparent box containing an ingredient, and when the grimoire-owner casts the spell, looking at the ingredient, the mystical markings will flare up and the ingredient will get consumed in a blaze of magic. (Unless this was the stealth spell.)

Symbolism tells us that that a sorcerer needs a free hand to shape symbols in the air if they don't have any pre-prepared. Ergo, non-Symbolism sorcerers and druids don't need to do any hand movements

That might be drawing a wrong conclusion, it could as well be though of as "Ergo, non-Symbolism sorcerers and druids can do their hand movements while holding items."

Similarly, there are a few power words, which are fast actions and presumably the action of the sorcerer saying "fzzot!" or something. I think it follows from there that you don't need to say anything to cast a spell

That could also be wrong conclusion. Power words could just mean that it is a short spoken word, and can therefor be cast as a fast action. A non power word, could simply mean that you need to speak out a longer phrase.

given that there's a druid stealth spell (Cat's Paw), at least some times you explicitly shouldn't say anything to cast the spell.

Or you might just be able to near silently whisper them?
I would say that you cannot cast Cat's Paw or any other magic while being observed, without someone noticing you. If you want to cast a spell unnoticed, you
must OBSCURE your magic, using the OBSCURE MAGIC spell. So therefore all spells are probably to some degree both somatic and verbal, unless otherwise noted. A lot of them could probably even have visual effects, like your healing hand might glow (unless you OBSCURE). All spells also cause some magical disturbance, detectable by others, see SENSE MAGIC.

You must spend a fast action to ready your grimoire

To add an annoying fact. The original rules in Swedish says that you must "draw forth your Grimoire", just like you would draw a weapon. The English rules translation made this to "ready", which means something different, as you need to ready before each action, but only draw once. It is also a bit strangle that this is kind of the only PC action that is not mentioned on the action economy page (PHB 86-87).

So I think it therefore follows that you are not reading the spell from the grimoire, let alone speaking magic words as a result, but you merely have some kind of boost from some kind of pre-recorded "oh yeah, this is what the spell is all about" thing built into your grimoire.

Sure, that could be a good interpretation. You could see it in many ways. Perhaps that a spell is like a mental melody? And that the "notes", can better keep your mind on track, especially in a stressful environment?

How near/new do ingredients need to be?

This one is hard. Looking at the example on page 120, Nirmena uses a torch carried by her enemy as an ingredient... this is however again a mistranslation from the Swedish rules, in those she holds the torch. So I would as a standard go with that you need to have drawn and hold an ingredient, to use it. There are obvious exceptions, but they are then obvious, like you cannot hold a bon fire or a lake, but they would then have to be in arm's length. Then I as a GM would allow you to use other available resources you are not holding, as long as it is cool and not game breaking. As it adds to the game to be able to use your environment to your advantage. So if it adds to immersion, I just allow it. If it breaks the game, I will not. I would probably never allow you to use your iron fillings while in a pouch, but if you had previously empties your pockets on the floor, I would allow it. Or (as ad-hoc roleplaying) perhaps roll SLEIGHT OF HAND to successfully jam one hand into your pocket as you cast your spell?

As a side note, and while it is not in the rules.. a lot of ingredients are listed in plural or not in a listed quantity, like "clay". In such cases I (as a house rule) see magic as whimsical enough, to make you roll some kind of a resource die for it. On a failure the whimsical nature of magic depletes all your resources of clay within an appropriate range if you, but if it doesn't fail, only a negligible portion of it is used up.

As for freshness. Again, as there aren't any rules. I would go with kind of fresh to begin with, then drop that for individuell spells just as long as the player and GM agrees.
So for a drop of blood, yes as it changes form I would go with that it cannot be dried up and thus probably should have happened within the turn (15 minutes). A glass vial would be hard as I don't see they would have the know how to remove the platelets/thrombocytes from the blood, to avoid it from coagulating. But sure, if a mage could do that, and wants to run around with vials of that, then sure, I would allow it. But I would maybe apply a shelf-life to the vials.

Cleanse Spirit requires a burning candle, which implies that you need two fast actions to get it ready: one to fish it out of your pack / your superhero bandoliers, and another to light it. This seems unfair.

I don't think the spells are balanced enough to call any of them fair. And unless there are any open flames nearby, it could take a lot longer to light the candle.
You could perhaps run around with a burning candle in your hand from the get go? Instead of holding a torch?
But to be real, in this case, you would probably only use this ingredient out of combat. If there for some reason would be any lit candles in your vicinity, you when you cast the spell, I would probably always go for the "you don't need to hold the ingredient" to use it.

Blood Channelling says you must sacrifice your living victim before you cast the spell. But how soon before?[

I see the sacrifice as part of the spell, so it should be done immediately before. Otherwise it could list the ingredient as a "fresh body" or something.
As for time, I would probably allow a player to snap a birds neck while they bring it forth, or just see it as part of the spells action, so that snapping its neck or stabbing it doesn't take any action.
Also note that all NPCs the players down should most often be considered as still alive, so calling a "coup de grace" you make a "sacrifice" on your initiative or the initiative before, would also be fine.

I think it reasonable to assume that the "page" that you copy the spell into has had the spell cast into it many times. I suspect that if it started out as parchment or paper, it's now much sturdier, because it's now full of magic.

This is a cool interpretation, I like the idea that the spells help to infuse the pages and that whats helps you safe-cast magic. I still think that you need to open the correct page though. But I see that as holding on to the right bookmark when you flip it open, (and such bookmarks are kind of attached to the edges of each different page). I also see sorcerers as being cool enough to do this one handed