I'm not. The combat in Sands of Time was painfully bad. In Warrior Within and The Two Thrones it was decent, but there's something wrong if I'm happy that I get a stealth kill because it means I don't have to fight more enemies.

Okay, I guess... but why is the combat of PoP'08 really better? It's just a repetitive duel combat with SHINY GRAPHIXX. The old Mechner classics were turned out better.

For me, the combat just served as a way to keep the platfoming from being too repetetive. It wasn't great, just OK, But it didn't need to be. For me it was very much navigaing the environment that was the key gameplay point.
Warrior Within basically ripped the heart and soul of Sands of Time in favour of "sell me" grittiness, swearing and self-mutiliation music.
I mean, the combat in old school prince of persia was basically "up to parry" and a to hit, but it's not the focus of gameplay.

It was better because you only had to fight like 9 battles in the entire game if you were fast enough. Ideally, they would cut combat entirely.