Patch 3!

[MikeV]

without outlining anyone's specific requirements set on the topic how is CA meant to magically "know" just what is too hard or too easy for everyone?

Maybe the difficulty settings are relevant now.

...

maybe everyone needs to readjust their own skills to the definitions of what the words Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard mean.

I'd settle for them documenting what they mean: what parameter values change with each setting, what criteria the AI algorithms use, etc.
Like the preferences file parameters.

That way, we'd all know exactly how the settings affect the app.

Some folks enjoy spending weeks or months trying to reverse engineer these things. I'd rather just read the design documentation. Then again, I'm a geek.