I see you know quite well this game. Well currently I gave up played it more, mainly because of battles. I'll try something else, perhaps Warlords IV that seems have better battles. I read units had all 4 special actions, they level up, the IA is relatively well done and I read few comments mentioning that the battle system was rather good and deep.
EDIT:
Some remarks about your comments:
- The mass sleep dryad and many KBTL effects aren't pvp design, that's already been mentioned in this threadn, homm5 pvp approach lower the solo game design quality. In KBTL the enemy don't have the choice to use level 4 units, you use sleep of dryad when the case is good that adds to tactical diversity.
- Good they add obstacles summon, too bad I haven't this addon because I'm using homm5 mac.
- I don't understand your comment about slow and haste. In homm5, if I understood well they don't affect only number of movements but also a little the initiative, as both are linked in homm5. In KBTL they affect only number of movement but on KBTL movements of 1 is a huge effect on KBTL battle boards. I didn't feel it the same and from far in homm5 for the slow spell. For haste ok it could be more powerful in homm5 but in practice slow involves much more tactical depth than haste.
- Summon based on mana and limited unit summon is rather different than unlimited summon there's in KBTL opening some cannon fooder tactics you can't apply otherwise.
- About teleporting enemy units I don't think homm5 has that unlike Archmage KBTL. Also KBTL has another minor enemy teleporting, well sort of it's some special attack that push back enemy, like for ghosts and cyclops. KBTL has also haste and normal teleporting spell.
- About fit of energy, I totally agree homm5 has some replacement through the complex initiative system.