Oy. Let me elaborate on what I mean by "two buttons and a way to move a cursor".
Console:
Move the grid selector/cursor to the desired destination. Click the proceed button. Or click the cancel button (honestly, nested menus can handle the cancel button part, but I like having a cancel buton)
PC:
Move the mouse to the grid of the desired destination. Click the proceed button (LMB). Or click the cancel button (RMB).
Everything else is fluff. Silent Storm let you use the numpad to pick what body part you were aiming at, but Fallout led to a pop-up menu. Nobody bitched about Fallout :p
But, at the same time, the more buttons you add, the more convoluted the game gets. There is a reason that design in general is leaning toward sleeker and more streamlined. Hell. the first time I played JA2, I didn't actually know how to aim at people who were a tile above or below me (had to read the manual. Should never have to read the manual :p)
There is a middle ground that varies from person to person. I would actually really dislike a two-button game. But, at the same time, I don't want to need to keep a reference card to figure out what I am doing.
And THIS is why I sort of got into the general bias against console games.
Do you NEED precision when you are playing a turn-based strategy game? Do you need to make sure you click on the giant dragon's left eye instead of his right eye? Or do you just have to click on the dragon?
And there used to be games where you manually entered in words to do things. The adventure games "evolved" into point and click ones, and Wizardry dropped that schtick after they finally moved to a new engine (so around 5, I think).
Except that you tend to not do actions too far away from your currently selected unit. So the incredibly painful delay of needing to scroll halfway across the world isn't there.
Also, I suggest you research the genre we are talking about. Pretty much every Turn-based game has had a grid of some form (usually of the generic "one person per grid-square" system). At the very least, it helps when computing how far you can move and the area effect of spells. It has only really been RTSs (and, to a lesser extent, Fallout) that did away with the grid.
Either way though, if the grid is already there (and, in JA2, it is) and there is no need for the kind of precision you get with a mouse (there isn't) and you aren't scrolling halfway across the world (you aren't :p), I don't see the problem.
Admittedly, I never played the original (only ever could find a copy of the GBA one), but most of those don't strike me as necessities.
Shortcuts for spells/abilities/whatever: I'll agree, it would be nice to be able to put the frequently used spells on the unit's quickbar/menu. But beyond that, maintaining five or six 10-key quickbars would just be REALLY annoying.
Also, as far as most of the non-fantasy turn-based strategy games go (like JA2 :p), you generally only had three actions. Use item in left hand. Use item in right hand. Move/interact with inventory. And most of those were context-sensitive to begin with.
And as for camera movement: Been a few years since I played FFT:A, but could you even move the camera period? And there wasn't a reason to. The map was the generic isometric one where everything was visible.
But you do raise a very good point (by example). A lot of PC gamers are inherently opposed to "consolification", not because of actual experiences, but because they don't see any other way to do it. I myself am guilty of this (I still don't know how Civ on the consoles works :p). But, in this one case (at least), if you look at how turn-based strategy games work, there is NOTHING restricting it to PC. And the interfaces have a LOT in common. Mostly to the point that, for a minimalist approach, one could EASILY use the same interface by just using context menus and replacing the grid-selector with a mouse-arrow.
Would that be a perfect solution? No. Fortunately, there are many ways to modify that to fine tune it for each platform (something that actually IS done for a lot of ports). But it would definitely do, and I doubt a lot of PC gamers would know the difference if they weren't specifically told that "them damned dirty consoles" were the reason.
A particularly good example actually comes from FPSs. SWAT 3 was all about the keyboard menu for every single radio command. And we all loved it. Then SWAT 4 came around (which was either released for consoles, or intended for consoles at some point) and largely replaced that with context-sensitive radial menus. We DID lose a few things that were nice (having to distinguish between injured and dead), but it was a much faster and more entertaining affair. And, in hindsight, the whole having to distinguish between injured and dead thing was annoying anyway (since an injured person would always lie still and say nothing until AFTER you accidentally misreported them).