His current staff could handle three Mana Gems, but they were specific ones of Earth, Fire, and Light Element. He could replace the mana gem with one of the other Elements, but the design worked with those three. Changing the design to fit the fourth Element was impossible as they handled three only because of the staff Price 'acquired.'
So the only option he had was to make different staves with different combinations, which would be a waste of materials, or create an Adjustable Rune Design.
An Adjustable Rune Design was pretty much as it sounded, a Rune design that could get adjusted on the fly. But this would lower the quality than if he had a stable design, and he had to have a perfect understanding of all the designs he could adjust to, or it wouldn't work.