-Enemies hitting too far is something I noticed with wizpigs specifically. The others are fine in my experience.
-As much as I'd like to say git gud, there's a couple specific fights where spamming cake really is your only option. Most notably the arena battle where they spawn in half a dozen or so of those... blight things at once. The blue-gray log enemies. 1v1ing them is typically pretty easy, but in that group fight it's a never-ending stream of projectile spam from them as not even heavy melee weapons will stagger the whole group, and the attack goes through walls.
-Mob drops have extremely high rates, and quests count any of the drop in question that's in your inventory. With the exception of the boar quest, the repeatables use stuff that you're likely going to be killing anyway doing the main quest, so it's often free bonus exp. It's a lot harder to make non-kill quests repeatable
-I didn't personally use magic on my run, so I can't really say for that
-In that later area there's chests at the end of arena battles that give equipment as well, though I do agree that it really feels like the shop should have non-basic gear eventually. Like, after you beat the slime diva make it so you can buy slime gear
-For the most part enemy attacks are telegraphed. Keep in mind that blocking is an animation cancel and it makes more sense for taking attacks to be punished as much as they are... except for the previously mentioned cluttered arenas
-It's to make kill quests more reasonable. If you gotta collect 30 rat butts you don't wanna be waiting 5 minutes for that cluster of 3 rats to respawn each time
-I feel like dodge and shield using the same resource IS a good thing. They're your defensive options and part of the mid-fight decision making is deciding which to use when. Against wizpigs, dodging out of range is your best bet, but if you're 1v1ing a golem, keeping things to just parries will let you put out a bit more damage. Panicking and using the wrong thing or just spamming it and putting yourself in a bad situation due to running out of stamina should be punished