Yeah, that's partly why I stayed with ELM. The new stuff seems to have mostly English translations built-in.
Regarding the whole "challenge" discussion, I hope none of my responses towards you made you feel 'attacked', Tarran, as they weren't meant to. The reason I enjoy these newer versions is not really because they make the game harder or easier than before, but because they just add new content, greatly expand the information in the character sheet, give a (IMO) vital 'sound fx' volume control in the options (amongst other things), fix the blackjack display bug, and just generally add new interesting stuff to experience. Like you said, lesser ether wind/less casino chips balances out to be about the same difficulty either way, but those versions also lack many things I consider to be important fixes and improvements. I suppose what I meant to say originally, is that it exchanges long-term difficulty with short-term difficulty; Etherwind hits you hard and fast, but you can get over it much quicker than before, if you're smart about it.
Eh, this is probably illegible, I wrote it before going to bed... sorry for any confusion. xD