hey, long time no see! thanks a bunch for playing and sharing your thoughts. i agree with you about the pacing of battle and you're right to peg it as an engine limitation. in the final version i'm hoping to edit the easyrpg player source code to speed up battles, since it's been a recurring critique.
as for the conflicting "genres".. i see the issue you're describing. a nebulous ruleset that you have to feel out through play is inevitably gonna be a messy process and needs to cut players a little slack so you're not asking them to replay every fight for a better score immediately after learning it. but i love attrition and dislike isolated battles, so rather than (say) add healing between fights, i'm inclined to just make battles easier so their threat is cumulative, and rather than having to perfect your approach to every battle, you're looking for smaller avenues of improvement across multiple encounters.. believe it or not i just don't like puzzle battles that much