To use a touch spell you have a few choices, you can make a concentration check to cast defensively, which stops it provoking, you can quicken the spell as swift and immediate action spells don't provoke (this may well work with arcane spellsurge come to think of it), you can cast the spell out of melee range as a standard action, walk into melee range as a move action and then make the touch attack as a free action, you can get more reach than your enemy so you can attack them from outside their threatened area (say by being bigger than them), you can be invisible and therefore immune to attacks of opportunity (unless they can see through your invisibility of course), you can use the spell spectral hand to make a ranged touch attack from a safe distance instead, you can have a familiar deliver the touch spell for you, you can use the reach spell metamagic or archmage's reach to turn it into a ranged touch attack, you can use the ocular spell feat to turn it into a ray. Many GMs will expand PBS to work with other ranged spell attacks, but not all of them will. Ranged touch spells arent considered weapons, but rays are specifically called out as working with weapon feats like weapon focus in the rules. For non-shuffle wands, the order of spells matters. There are many different spells and effects, including modifier spells, which do not create an effect on their own, but rather modify another effect.

Individual spells can be found in chests as well as purchased in some shops. This isn't a ruling, for touch spells, it's simply that nothing says they don't provoke, so you use the normal spellcasting rules which say casting spells provokes. I believe the only spells that Point Blank Shot works on by RAW are ray spells. Spells are the individual effects used on a wand. Casting a touch range spell provokes as normal, there's no special exception. Yes it is something missing in the rules.

Bouncing spell and ranged touch spells