I can't cure Death Cloud now, as I need to learn Purify Air. I haven't faced any "cloud" enemies yet, and won't for a while, so no need to learn it yet. I generally don't do "run combat", as I consider it cheating, which is why I don't run to the T'Rang-porter with that. A new game plus mode would just make it boring, as I will slaughter everybody with a flick of the pinkie.
I'm grinding Arnika for now, sometimes getting pathetically low spawns (level 5 Higardi Raiders and annoying level 12 Savant Orbs that move quickly and have long range), and sometimes getting worthy level 21 Savant Slashers, with their gang of trash level 8 Savant Gunners. I have found that equipping the Bard with Bloodlust is paying dividends, as she destroys anyone who gets too close to her.

You could use an item for that.
Getting the Heal All gadget this way doesn't feel as cheaty as going to the teleporter that way.

Plus, you may not even need to do that, as in my experience, getting the stone is not enough to actually start combat. (In fact, even if combat starts, you could probably get the stone and run far enough for combat to end, as you don't actually need to enter the temple to get the stone.)

I think that is the same battle where you get Fang. If I go to the temple, I'm going all in. It would be nice to eventually uncurse/unequip Bloodlust so my Bard gets her ranged abilities back. I think she had around 50 Ranged Combat skill and her Bow skill was in the 60s. Or I could try grinding for the Light Sword...killing all but one Buccaneer Ghost and knocking him down to a few HPs, paralyzing him, running away, saving, reloading for minutes/hours, etc.

I figured out an ingenious plan. I switched out the Bard and Gadgeteer. I gave the Gadgeteer the Bloodlust, and put her on the frontline, letting my Bard use her Mercucio's Blade and Tripleshot Crossbow from the flank. That way, they both get training.

you must be burning ammo at high rates by now?

Yes, I'm training all my casters in Throwing and Sling/Ranged Combat, as well as now the Bard has the Tripleshot Crossbow, so I'm going through ammo pretty quickly. Fortunately, I'm training in Arnika, so Anna La'am is right there with her good ammo. Antone has crappy ammo (Blinding Arrows/Fright Bolts) and Bullet Stones.

I'm probably going to have to get used to "blue" encumberance. It's not terrible, I just think that it affects the # of swings/attacks per round, as well as lowers initiative. "Green" encumberance is bad, as if you wear armor that's too heavy, it lowers your AC, which defeats the point of heavy armor.
I built my Bard and Gadgeteer as tanks, except I skipped on Vitality, which doesn't control any skills, not to mention at 45 Vitality as a Human, their HPs are around average. I'm going to supplement their average Vitality with buffs/Guardian Angel, Bless, etc. Strength 100, Vitality 45.
The casters are built as glass cannons, I put no points into helping out encumberance. Strength/Vitality 45.
At some point, after collecting enough items, I'm going to be in "blue" encumberance, as I gave everybody the best(usually heaviest) armor they can wear. Not to mention all that ammo.

That actually brings up an issue I've encountered in many games, where armor, which I often tend to ignore in games where it has no drawbacks (unless I find that I need the extra defense boost, or the armor has an interesting special effect), ends up being not worth the trouble. This, for example, includes at least the following games:
* TES: Arena: Much easier to improve your evasion with accessories or boosting Agility without any penalties (weight slows you down)
* Final Fantasy 2: Heavy armor hurts evasion, which affects turn order and chance to run away. Furthermore, some of the most dangerous enemies have HP drain attacks that bypass defense, but don't bypass agility, and the drain is % based so high HP isn't the solution either.
* MIght and Magic: World of Xeen: There isn't an obvious disadvantage to armor, but any time a character's HP gets reduced to -10, all of the character's armor breaks and is useless until repaired. Furthermore, in many areas, including the very first town, armor is useless because it does not protect against anything that isn't physical, and enemies only have one attack type each.

In Diablo 2, I found armor almost useless, except for magical effects. I found that my characters were always running around, and when you run, you have a 95% chance to be hit. IMO, it's a dumb system.
In Final Fantasy 1, usually, the better armors were heavy, and cost you evasion %, making you more likely to be hit.
In Chrono Trigger, the armor never really seemed to reduce damage taken noticeably. Again, for magical effects.
I guess with my Autism/Aspergers/whatever I have, I always try to make my party as powerful as possible. I figure that wearing the armor pieces with the best AC is part of that, even if they are heavy. In past parties, I almost always ran into blue encumberance, so I just learned to embrace that as part of the game.
I used to pump Vitality, but I find that it's priority 5 out of 7 attributes, mostly because Vitality is retroactive, so you can "catch up" on HP, Stamina, and CC. Also worth noting, it does NOTHING to help any skills rise.
I seem to be in the minority here, but I think Speed is worth having on every character. The extra swings and attacks it grants, and the initiative boost, and a small +2 AC boost, and Snakespeed on maxing it, all make it something to strive for. In the underwater areas, Haste doesn't work. Also, Bard instruments and Gadgeteer gadgets seem to fire at random power levels, so there is no guarantee that you will get level 7 Haste out of the Rousing Drums.

In FF1, this wasn't a major issue; heavily armored characters would tend to take less damage, and end-game heavy armor wasn't as bad (certainly not as bad as that rather expensive Knight's Armor).

In FF2, on the other hand, it was a major issue, and is severe enough that I actually recommend not wearing armor unless you know what you're doing, and even then, don't wear heavy armor at all. (Do, however, equip a shield; the evade bonus is ridiculous once you raise your shield level. Note, however, in the Famicom version, doing so hurts your magic; the Main Gauche can be used as a substitute that doesn't have a major magic penalty.)

That's because the damage formula substracts defense from a constant, and then uses it as a factor in the damage formula.

Early on, defense is basically useless. Once your defense is already high, more defense makes a big difference; the difference between 254 and 255 defense is a factor of 2 (though apparently 243 is the highest reachable). Similarly, 99 magic defense will provide significantly more damage reduction than 98 will.

Final Fantasy 6 is like this as well (though there' the fact that the game uses magic evasion against physical attacks due to a bug on SNES/PSX).

(By the way, if you raise Ayla's magic stat, her healing ability actually becomes pretty powerful (in addition to being the only single tech that can cure status ailments). Oh, and I think Slurp Kiss is my favorite combo in that game.)

I never knew that in Chrono Trigger. I used to grind them up, even though the game is easy enough that grinding isn't necessary. I think Marle was the weakest character overall. She never seemed to do much physical damage (neither did Lucca), even at max level, but I understand that isn't what Marle and Lucca are for. She never got any good magic attacks either (I think Ice2 was her best attack). I don't think she got any group heal spells either. So she wasn't even the best healer (Robo, Ayla, and Frog had heal spells too). I think the only thing Marle had going for her was Resurrection and Resurrection with full health. I think the best party was Chrono, Ayla, and Magus (he actually gets good physical attacks later on, unlike Marle and Lucca).
From what I remember: Chrono was Lightning master (Luminaire).
Lucca was Fire master (Flare).
Magus was Shadow master (Dark Matter). He could also do Fire2/Water2/Lightning2.
Marle and Frog were Ice/Water apprentices (Ice2/Water2, same element).
Ayla was pure physical, with healing and stealing :)
Robo was a strange mix of healing, Fire magic, Lightning magic, and Shadow magic.

Marle really should have had a multi-target heal and/or a status cure spell, as it really seems silly for her not to have either despite being clearly meant to be a primary healer. The only thing she really has going for her is Haste (and Life 2), and I believe there's some item that grants Auto-Haste. (I know there's an Auto-Reraise item, where Reraise is otherwise only accessible by the triple tech Life Line.)

Also, it seems silly that Chrono has a revive spell, but no spell to heal living characters.

Then again, I don't like replaying Chrono Trigger because of one part where you have to mash a button to proceed, which should not have been in the game.

Going back to Wizardry 8, what do you think of the Umpani Training Grounds? You know, that area where the game basically turns into an action game where you have to avoid getting crushed and also have to walk on a thin platform over lava? Do you think it's a good inclusion, or do you feel it doesn't belong in the game?

The Umpani Training Course always kind of annoyed me (the non-fighting parts) like avoiding the spikes, and the platform over lava. I always had to reload at least once (RIP Ironman parties). This is one of many reasons I would never play Ironman. The dread of a party wipe around every corner, especially from game bugs, isn't for me. There are weird things about the game too, like how if you face 2 or 3 groups of enemies, they would randomly disengage from battle, even though they're around the corner, and you can see them on your X-Ray view.
This is a wonderful game, where I feel that balance is the key to winning, along with keeping true to your characters' core. I know the AT Road is a pain with the Juggernauts, so I'm trying to round out my characters so that they're all good at 2 or 3 things. Melee, ranged, magic, music, engineering, locks and traps (pick 2 or 3).
That's why I'm switching my Bard and Gadgeteer out. I feel that my Bard has good melee abilities since I put her on point with the Bloodlust, but her ranged attacks have lagged behind. Conversely, the Gadgeteer's melee isn't great, since she's on one flank, but her ranged abilities are great with the tripleshot crossbow. So I'm switching them out. Gadgeteer in the front with Bloodlust to work on her melee, Bard on the flank firing away with tripleshot xbow.

I'd say I'm of the stance that action sequences like that don't beling in RPGs at all. I remember that being one of the many problems I had with Final Fantasy 7 (along with other issues with the game, like too much time spent in cutscenes and the game being way too easy), though action sequences in what are supposed to be turn-based RPGs actually date back to Ultima 1. When I'm playing an RPG, I want to play an RPG, not an action game.

Back to Wizardry 8, I remember one time when I was right by the mine cart, I clicked on a piece of wood, it fell toward the party, and the game then decided that my party was crushed.

Speaking of bugs, there are 2 reproducable assertions that I have encountered, and that, if the game were still in development, could be reported as bugs.
* If, outside of battle, you use the "use last item" hotkey to use up the last of a consumable item, the game will crash with an assertion. (Easy way to test this: Use a healing potion from a stack of at least 2, then use the hotkey to use it until it runs out; the game will crash.)
* If you go into a character's inventory, then cast Remove Curse from there, an assertion can be triggered. For this to happen, the spell has to be used from the inventory (not the main screen), the spell needs to backfire, the caster must be affected by the Hex status from the backfire, and the SP loss from the Hex (due to stats and skills going down) needs to put the caster's SP into the negatives; in this case the game will crash. (The workaround is to only cast the spell from the main screen.)

Also, I'm with you on not playing Ironman; in fact, when playing Wizardry 1-3 or 5, I will use save states to avoid the permadeath mechanic. (Wizardry 4 doesn't have this mechanic, so I don't need to use save states there.)