Agree, the effort it takes to set up an ambush is considerable. Party members wandering off and blundering into combat.
Stealth is also weird. If you start a fight with everyone in stealth, you have to manually activate them in the initiative sequence, otherwise they are skipped by default. That's clumsy. Most people are going to want to get the drop on their foes to start a fight if possible. The game makes that very awkward.
It takes like 20 button combo just to make everyone hide. Most games in the RPG genre use a "one hide - all hide" and though I appreciate the ability to hide individuals one at a time, it is not what I want 95% of the time. It could be there and I haven't found it. I'm only 20 hours in.