Mafwek: If you find reactive playstyle more engaging, that is your subjective taste and I won't try to change it, to each its own. I will just point out that 3.5 and Pathfinder (un)fortunately don't really support as much as it does proactive. It's mostly because status effects are not just debilitating, but also disabling. Take poison for example: while it covers annoying ability damage it also includes things like Stinking Cloud spell, which completely disables those who get hit by it (if they are not immune). Simply casting Delay Poison (Communal) makes your whole party immune to both effects, and eliminates need to cast multiple restorative spells.
You are right that Channel Energy can be useful during combat if multiple characters are injured, but you need to have Selective Channel Feat in that case.
dtgreene: With the whole Stinking Cloud and Delay Poison situation, I think that, as it stands, both spells are perhaps too powerful for their level.
Stinking Cloud probably shouldn't completely disable those affected. Perhaps if it took away the move action rather than the standard action, it wouldn't be nearly as devastating, or maybe make it only sometimes disable actions. Or, perhaps, make the spell higher level or not include it at all. (In a table top game, being hit with a disabling effect as a player basically means you can't play at all for a while, and that's no fun.)
Delay Poison, as written, provides outright immunity to an entire category of effects for a long duration, and that is a really powerful effect, something that would be more suited to a higher level spell, and one that perhaps shouldn't have a communal version; therefore, such spell should either have a much shorter duration (say, only the current battle, and only castable during battle), or should require a significant portion of the character's magic resources (something that does not map well onto the D&D/Pathfinder spell slots system). As for an actual 2nd level Delay Poison, it would probably fit better if:
* It only worked on pre-existing poisons. (In other words, using it as a preventative measure wouldn't work.)
* If poisons tended to work more the way they usually do in non-D&D CRPGs, where poison does damage over time. Then, this spell would prevent the damage from the existing poison until it wears off or the character gets hit by another poison.
Worth noting that that Selective Channel feat is a prerequisite for Mythic Channel, so if playing Wrath of the Righteous and you're going to be using that Mythic Channel build, you're going to be taking Selective Channel anyway.
Also, with healing in D&D (including pre-3e versions), there is a major issue with scaling, where the game gives you a bunch of weak healing spells, then suddenly an incredibly powerful healing spell. I think it would be better with a smoother progression, where lower level healing spells (particularly in the 3rd through 5th level range) would be significantly stronger, and Heal (and Mass Heal, which might be too much) not being such a huge jump over the lower level spells.
The problem with the game heavily favoring a proactive playing style is that, by the time combat starts, the result is basically already pre-determined, and there isn't enough room for interesting situations to come up once the battle has actually started.
Again, subjective ideas and opinions. From my experience, looking a way to improve the game from subjective standpoint prevents you to enjoy the games for what it is (in most cases, anyway). I find it much more productive to look for ways to improve real world than "silly escapism" such as videogames.
