I agree with the original poster. In a great game in so many ways, Larian has opted for the lazy way of balancing difficulty by bloating hp/damage. Best approach to increased difficulty would be to have larger mob spawns yet with total xp remaining same or even slightly less to ensure the party isn't overleveled as is frequently the case now. This way the player could feel properly "heroic" as in going against the odds and not cheated when bested in combat. Having a random or fixed chance of each enemy spawned being slightly higher level is also better than simply inflating hp and damage.
