It is generally recognised that MM9 was in a state barely good enough for beta testing when the dire financial state of the parent company dictated that it had to be marketed. Agreed that there are far too many bugs, although Bones in particular (and I believe others) have done a sterling job patching many of them. But it is still buggy. The promotion sequences in particular are most unforgiving, although they do work if you get it right.However, it had the potential to be a very good game indeed, in my opinion, and some of those strengths remain. Might & Magic's subterranean humour is still there - try reading the scrolls and posters scattered liberally around the towns. And there's the delicious sight of Salieri as a monk, presumably his penance after murdering MM9's Mozart. Above all, there is the superb job that the developers did on the combat engine. I have never come across an RPG game where the same set of enemies can do such a good job of giving a worthwhile battle to such a wide range of party strengths. The Chasm of the Dead is doable at level 11. It's also an enjoyable battle with a level 25 party, and all this without fiddling about with the game so that the strength of any one monster rises as your party's abilities rise. This is cheating IMO, and for me it is one of Wizardry 8's main drawbacks.
The maps and mouse, well, that's personal preference, and therefore I have no comment.
In summary, I hear what you say, and I agree with a lot of it, but the game is not a total dead loss.
