I agree with the OP....I think the environmental effects are too excessive. The biggest thing for me is that so many of your own abilities will damage your allies. Your melee characters are getting wrecked from all fronts.
I kind of wish there was an option to disable "friendly fire." It's frustrating when I have cool abilities on my bar but can't use them because I know it will nearly kill my allies.
That could be a viable option for explorer mode, but for me the friendly fire is a crucial part of the challenge. It's would be too easy without it, just bash with melee characters and spam fireball/firestorm ect.
Definitely fun, but easy.
