Istari and their staves

[radagastly]

The wizards have the bodies of old men; the staffs are to help them walk, and to lean on.

They're certainly an appropriate accessory to the "costume" of old men in which they were clothed. I get the impression from the three wizards that we actually meet (Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast) that none of them actually were infirm enough genuinely to need them, however.

They were certainly a badge of office, though a rather impractical one, I think. How annoying it must be to have to drag around a big stick your whole life, rather than just pinning a tin star to your wizard robe and forgetting about it. They had to be carried, grasped in the hand, generally paid attention. That was their main purpose, I think. To focus the wizards attention. The staffs came from Aman, and are therefore a reminder of where the wizards came from, and why they are in Middle Earth, what their mission is supposesd to be. As such, they would naturally help the wizard to focus their mind on the innate power each of them posesses. I don't think the staffs were imbued with any "magical" properties. They were special for their artifact value. For example, a couple of the pearls in Queen Elizabeth's crown are known to have been worn by Elizabeth the first. Other parts of her state robes have each their own story. Do you wonder how she feels, on state occasions, garbed in all that history? I think these staffs had a similar significance to the wizards.