IS HARD DIFFICULTY BUGGY?

I got the ID Monster skill, so I now see that normal variety monsters have standard vitality and damage expected in "normal difficulty". The only change I see in "hard" mode is that certain mini-bosses, Heavy Orc, Orc Wardrummer, Skeletal conjurer, etc, all have TEN TIMES the normal Vitality and their damage power increase at least five times if not more...

This is not what I call a good challenge, if the normal monsters are just as easy to kill as ever, but the occasional baddie is nearly impossibly difficult, and impossible to fight toe-to-toe.

Is anyone finding HARD mode different than this? I wonder if my save games are glitched. I started this NEW "hard" game after I patched to 1.33.