While I mostly agree with your argument, I disagree that this is what the game does. It actually does something worse. It never actually tells you "quick, time is of the essence"! Instead there is a vague reference to something that could potentially be used to JUSTIFY a time constraint (first one in zarr's initial dialog, and a second one hidden and implied by "final battle" talk the elf dude talks about that zarr and other masters tell you is nonsense!
The only actual clear statement of "hey, there is a time limit" by a characte is done by zarr 10 turns before you lose the campaign.

Furthermore, it takes this a step further and has many conversations with various sources that imply strongly that there ISN'T a time limit (or rather, that the time limit is so large that it is irrelevant for the game purposes).

For the game to break the implied agreement you described it must first actually make the statement that time is of the essence at the begining. It would have been TRIVIAL to take Zarr's explicit warning that occurs 10 turns before loss and give it to you on turn 3-5 of the game.

I think Eador doesn't convey any sense of urgency in the campaign (I haven't finished it so far it doesn't look urgent in any way).
I think that, given the nature of the campaign, it cannot be infinite and there must be a limit (each shard provides rewards, when none are left, only the other astral masters are left and each having its owne personality, they are in finite number).
So there has to be a limit in number of shards. If you lose by just pressing End Turn, then no sense of urgency being conveyed, it's bad.

However, I agree with Davane on point 2. Games that tell me "you must go to XXX quickly" and let me walk around half the world, rest for 3 months and come back with a situation unchanged suck. Most RPGs fall to this trap and I'd rather have a game in which time matters. Then again I'm a NetHack fan, so I think Dying is fun.

Thanks for clarifying, in that I case I agree with you 100%.
Even if eador DID give such a warning, its not enough due to all the arguments you listed

I have to agree that the existence of this limit is not properly conveyed. I don't accept the argument that Zarr's warning is sufficient. Putting aside the conventions set forth by the industry, we also face the fact that Zarr is consistently an unreliable character. From the very start of the game, he misleads and antagonizes you. So the player can hardly be expected to trust him.

Second, you don't need an obvious timer, as long as you make it clear to the player that the timer exists, and give them rough updates every once in a while. Think Fallout 1 & 2. No on felt those time limits were unfair, because those limits were explained to them clearly. They weren't merely implied by an untrustworthy character.

Now that I completed a campaign at expert I can say that the concerns in this thread are wildly overblown.I took my time not actively pursuing the end and won at turn 48, there were other options coming up to win shortly thereafter. There's no way I would have ever come close to the time limit, even if I had lost way more shard battles. In fact I was somewhat disappointed that it already ended, it was just getting good.
I did have to abandon a Fallout 1 game because of the time limit and that really annoyed me.

Time limits work when they're accompanied by real choice. Eador has 12 endings, you make a choices every shard. I think this is just good design.

To take another game series as example, this is why time limits worked in Daggerfall. You had to make tradeoffs (what quest you took, journeys you made, factions you joined) and you got one of five endings.

Morrowind worked by taking the opposite approach. You could explore at your leisure, the game made it feel right to do so, and ultimately a single (though open) ending.

It was oblivion that introduced the faux-urgency thing which apparently is a "convention" we all have to live by ??? rather than just one of the billion things that was utterly wrong with that shit for game (and games of the last half decade in general).

SOooo.. I guess my point is we can enjoy our daggerfalls (eador) and our morrowinds (homm?) but we should never accept the f-ing oblivions.