You're right disruptorX. I double checked the game this morning and the advisor was still disabled. I could have sworn he reappeared even after I told him to take a hike but I must have been mistaken. In any case it looks like I'm in the minority here with my interface grievances.

The strategy map is an improvement graphics wise but I still think it could use some tweaking. In MTW you had time during the end turn to see the AI move troops. It moved slow enough you could get a sense of what they were up to. Now, AI movement flashes by so quickly it's very difficult to get anything out of this information. It's so fast that I fail to see the point of animating AI movement at all.

In other situations the movement is a little slow. I set up a diplomat with a long march and then ended turn. After the AI had moved at blinding speed I had to wait 5-6 seconds while my diplomat sauntered through his walk path. There was nothing else going on - just this one guy strolling. There's no option (that I've found) to speed up this strat map movement at the end of the turn. Ideally I'd like to skip through their movement (like I can when they're moving mid-turn)

I can agree the sum total of the game experience outweighs the downsides of the interface but their presence adds a disproportionate element of annoyance/amateureness. It's like an ingrown toenail; it's only a very small annoyance but it hurts like hell and is all you can think about.