I actually quite liked it as a mechanic, not because it's some illicit way of making things easier. That said, I don't live for hardcore combat and for me it's a minor (and sometimes exasperating) part of gameplay. I've seen numerous comments that it should be more difficult: by all means, make hard mode harder if necessary, but I'd rather easy and normal were left alone.
Part of the problem seems to be that the game is trying to cater for two disparate groups, the very competitive MMO crowd and the more introspective immersion types, and there seems to be limited commonality between the two. I don't think that chucking insults either way is really a productive way to address the problem, though.
