Agree, but I have to be honest, I actually liked the streamlined nature of V. To me the game had become too much micro-management (especially the endgame) and I never understood a lot of the systems in the game (like religion and most of the diplomacy). But by the time Brave New World expansion hit, it basically had everything in it that the prior versions had. And which I again more-or-less ignored...
I was disappointed in how the changes to the battle system turned out, though - it basically replaced the "stack of doom" with another highly predictable (and boring) strategy, which is the never-ending siege bombardment to get the city's hit points down to zero, then simply move a land-based unit into the city. I understand siege weapons are important, but there's basically no reason whatsoever to bring a melee unit into range until you catapult/trebuchet/artillery the city to zero HP. It sorta makes for not-very-interesting combat. I think the ability to embed siege units with melee units and stack a (hopefully limited) number of units into a "corp" might bring something interesting to the combat. I'm not looking for a return to the stack-o-doom days, but I don't think the changes in "V" were entirely successful....