"As people have said already in this thread, it's a difference between convenience and tedium, not ease and difficulty: 'go into battle, pick off an enemy or two, run away, auto-heal, repeat' and 'go into battle, pick off an enemy or two, run away, cast some cheap healing spells, go back to town and rest up if necessary, repeat' are identical in terms of actual battle difficulty, it's just that the latter requires more down time."
i agree,BUT: if you know that the resurection of your partners will cost you 20 minutes, the strategy you put into the battle and the tension will increase ; and when you are finally done with a tough battle ( after healing/resurecting only in friendly towns) you have the feeling to won a great battle.
in actual stadium, the battle is a clickfest : die,resurrect,die,resurrect, win th battle in 2 minutes ; i recall,in geneforge 5 have some tough battles for 1 hrs !