Thank you for your elaborated post, but I have to disagree with all your points.
1. I wish there were many more skills, and that actually future games will improve on that. Skills = choices = new way to play the game and have fun. If you find them overwhelming, take your time and learn them.
2. Merchants are just fine, it is a pleasure to deal with so much variety and uncertainty. It gives us the illusion of a big world full of 'real' people.
3. High level enemies is a bless. Maybe they can introduce easier levels for people who don't want to invest in combat and tactic that much, but also a higher difficulty (and higher enemy levels) for people like me that like a challenge and don't want to be able to steam-roll everybody the first time.
4. Combat is so clear and well done that (well polished, well thought) that I don't even see how this could be improved.
