Pretty true overall. It would help a lot if combat animations weren't slow, too. I don't think they have to remove 50% of the combat, but make many more fights optional for those who want as much combat as they can get. Of course, that would only really exasperate the over-leveling, main content vs. optional content problem. A dash of level-scaling would assuage that, but I won't get into that can of worms.
Also, the AI just isn't sophisticated enough to continually provide an interesting challenge. Even assuming the low-hanging fruit is dealt with, like enemies obsessing over charmed brethren, it's extremely hard for an AI to deal with something as simple as not grouping up in a chokepoint, or to gang up on a single target without ignoring everything else, nevermind deliberately coordinating a unique strategy. Scripted tricks and neat skills are the best we can do with AI, it seems, and that will ultimately make a turn-based game grow trivial as you learn the AI's weaknesses and general tendencies. Reducing the amount of filler combat would make a weak AI less obvious as at least the fights would be entertaining and relevant to the story, and you'd have less time to observe the weak AI as you progress.
It's probably beyond the scope of my mod to try and reduce or optionalize the number of filler fights in the game, but I might look into it with the editor. The goblin area is an especially big offender.