I believe they decided to do this not bcs of their "obsession with surface effects" ... but more like "bcs Extended Spell would otherwise do litteraly nothing in most cases" :-/
But i agree, it was not best decision. :-/
Eventually as some had already suggested before, let us choose for all spells :
- to target an ennemy = damage but no surface
- to target the ground = surface (to interract with a surface that is already in the environnement, to block a path, to reduce their AC,...).
This would be very cool IMO, increasing the player agency rather than forcing things.
This indeed sounds really interesting!!!
