I agree with parts of your statement. But getting rid of elemental surfaces ? It sounds like a core aspect of their vision. I doubt they'll remove that.
At most, they may provide fine-tuning difficulty options that allows you to activate/deactivate some mechanisms.
I too find that the turn-based mode does a bad job of showing you who has already played their turn.
My guess is that they have so far spent a lot of time playtesting the game with a single character. They have probably introduced the out-of-combat turn-based mode tool to get a better control on the character when they do things that are not core-RPG, but they haven't properly finished the tool. Especially how it works when you have a party of more than one character.
The annoying thing is not so much that the tool isn't finished, it's the reason why it was introduced.
You mentioned feeling like you play a RTS. I have the feeling they are trying to make a game that is also a stealth game. And the focus on the jump makes the game have some platformer flavours. I wish they focused first and foremost on the roleplaying and tactical combat aspects of the game.
