Hi, Rowdius.
We also likes pits, and don’t want to see any of them them go away.
Consider how easy it is to evade most monsters that need to move AROUND pits (e.g., reapers), and how difficult it is to get away from monsters that move across pits (e.g., spores, ghosts, specters). For the most part, terrain now works to our advantage, AFTER we have been spotted. We also likes hiding behind them, and shooting, and making them part of our fire wall, because 3 hexagons of fire isn’t nearly enough, without pits, to keep the baddies out.
I think that what we are lobbying for is for the Elf to keep its current ability to leap sneakily. As mentioned before, the Elf is a horrible fighter, but a superlative thief (which contrasts dramatically with the roles that the Human and Dwarf play).
Overall, it seems like the Elf changes are intended to shift the Elf in the direction of becoming more Human/Dwarf-like, becoming a worse thief, and then trying to compensate by adding multiple attacks.
It leaves me wondering what specific problem the Elf changes are trying to solve. For my part, I am ALREADY making much more extensive use of the Dwarf than I used to (due to the recent Dwarf changes). In addition, as I described earlier, the current Elf is already self-limiting, in that it becomes pretty much useless, once the scrolls run out. (Lately, I have noticed a couple of 50-dragon Tournament results, and I would be very surprised if that was an Elf doing that.)
Using the new Dwarf and the old Elf, in Career mode, I am winning some of the time, and the dragons are winning some of the time, and I assume that that situation is what was intended. Given that both Dwarf and Human have recently been made better than before (and therefore more competitive with the existing Elf), I am not sure that I see the point in putting a bell on the cat (i.e., making the Elf clumsier and noisier than before).
The danger is that any major change in the way that sneaking operates is almost guaranteed to unbalance the game yet again, producing a character that is either overpowered or completely useless. Unforeseen side-effects are a given. I would favor keeping the changes more subtle (and the level-based skill enhancements more subdued).
Remind me again what problem the Elf changes were supposed to fix?