Oddly enough I share a lot of your complaints except money – I’ve never found myself short of it, but then I’m not really buying anything beyond the essentials. I loaded up on blue potions on the first island, and am overusing Frost Avalanche to freeze enemies which makes combat much easier (in some cases trivial). You can always rest at an inn regardless of your party’s tiredness, and it doesn’t consume food either – on top of that, you only pay for characters who are conscious when you come in, so the more knackered your team is the cheaper the stay is 🙂
Sira’s “View of Life” spell adds an HP meter, but you have to cast it on every battle, so I rely more on just vaguely being aware of how many HP each monster type has and how much I’ve damaged them (it isn’t easy to keep track of that either, because the damage display at the end of each round only counts the most recent attack!)
I imagine the combat skill penalty is to reflect the axe’s heaviness? But I’ve really no idea – information on the actual game mechanics seems extremely rare!
