I don't have time to sift through it all, but I think I found your problem: "We've played on hard till the beginning, and we've enjoyed the challenge."
As for the difficulty, I have to apologize because I know the type of gamer that LETS a game like DOS get too easy for them. Stop doing it, resist the urge to clean each town of everything, stop re-loading on that boss/chest until you get OP items, accept failures in fights/stealing/dialog, maybe keep the secrets vendor a tiny bit more secret, did you really have to kill all those NPCs eventhough you successfully struck a deal, you're telling me nobody in the entire game knows you're the burglar who took EVERY SINGLE painting and sold them IN TOWN... I mean come on, I see you people.
Stop abusing the game so heavily and wondering where the challenge went. Honestly save the song and dance about how you play X build because its harder, or ways you personally justify you dumb dicking the game in several areas. Maybe its your co-op buddy, just mention it at least and get some of the challenge back.
Just to make things interesting, I'm going to use a rather odd movie allusion as a rhetorical device.
![[Linked Image]](http://i.imgur.com/GliUYKL.jpg)
Jean Girard: Do you know why I came to America Monsieur Bobby?
Ricky Bobby: Health care systems, giant water parks. The same reason anyone comes to America.
Jean Girard: I came here for you to beat me.
Ricky Bobby: What are you talking about?
Jean Girard: My husband Gregory and I want only that what every other couple wants. To tame komodo dragons in Sri Lanka and teach them to perform Hamlet. But before I can do that... I must be beaten by a driver who is truly better than me.
Ricky Bobby: You saying you're going to lose to me on purpose?
Jean Girard: No.
Ricky Bobby: No?
Jean Girard: NO! I will battle you with the entirety of my heart and you will probably lose. But maybe, just maybe, you might challenge me. The Beatles needed the Rolling Stones. Even Diane Sawyer needed Katie Couric. Will you be my Katie Couric?
If you're playing a game on the highest difficulty setting possible, you're not doing that because you want to avoid the power plays. That's something you might try on Normal. No, if you're going for the highest difficulty, you want to battle the game with the entirety of your heart... and maybe, just maybe, the game will challenge you. You're looking for your Katie Couric.
And right now Hard really, really sucks as being Ms. Couric.
