Hmm, I don't really mind the RNG sometimes bending me over the barrel and doing sweet, unsolicited love to my bunghole. That happens in roguelikes in general, which DD portrays to be be. The bad part is in how difficult it is to recover from the said sweet lovin'.
I get it that if you push your party ahead despite everyone being crazy or at low hp, then getting wiped is part of the risk management thingy. However, sometimes you get totally screwed by crits or some other roll of the dice while playing somewhat carefully, leading into a wipe. Getting back on your feet after that can be very difficult. Fleeing is so hard and sometimes you have several guys with have-to-be-removed -traits. For example, a combinaton of godfearing and witness makes the character unable to recover any stress at all. You *have* to get rid of one to keep using the guy. It makes me think your guys should recover some stress for free if simply left home, but at a slow rate. The only must for paying for stress recovery should be insanity.
What comes to balance, I still think the plague doctor is pretty good with the enemy displacement, stun bombs and the bleeding dagger strike. Not awesome, but pretty good. Being able to stun two rear enemies can sometimes be a lifesaver. Plus I like variety, so I always hire one of each class to my crew and try to use them all.
I certainly agree more interactions between the characters inside and outside dungeoneering would be fun, especially if it happened due to class and quirk combinations. So, for example, characters who are satanists could get into summoning a demon with hilarious consequences or godfearer and witness could get into a religious debate. (Ending in stress, removing the quirk from one of the characters or just wasted time etc.)
Edit: I think the boss fights, by the way, are strangely balanced. First the assumed difficulty level doesn't seem to really indicate the difficulty. The apprentice necromancer was a breeze; he just stayed stunlocked while my guys beat him like LAPD on Rodney King. The hag, on the other hand, did a total party wipe on the same characters. I got stuck wasting all my actions releasing people from the pot, pretty much. This was partially a tactical blunder on my part, but the impossible-to-resist put in to the pot felt a bit unfair.
Considering how all characters are mortal all the time, I wish defeating a boss would give you something special. Either special quirk to the victorious characters or a permanent boon to your hamlet or something. The mechanical effects don't really matter; I'd just like a reward for the trouble.