My initial motivation was that I wanted to present the player with a non-straightforward decision: keep the VP token, or draw (a) card(s).
The lack of any other resources (+Buy, +$) were specifically to weaken the card. +1 Action / +1 VP in itself isn't that great. Sure it gets better when you combine it with certain cards like Scrying Pool, but even Pearl Diver gets better with Scrying Pool.
The main question is: Would you really lack the incentive to end the game if you would just bank the VP tokens? I have a feeling that if you play this+BM, you'll get smoked by just about any other BM. So, you need an engine. But engines are pretty good at ending the game.
How about if I turned it around?
+1 Card
+1 VP token
Spend VP tokens for actions.
You draw the card before deciding to spend, so that makes that part more powerful, but overall it seems weaker if it doesn't give free actions.