None really, Eiyuden Chronicles (the new game made by the same team from these games) still has some inventory management quirks I didn't like, but at least improved on it.
This is true, but I'd add that grinding isn't too bad in the first two games since you get certain combo attacks that hit the entire enemy team, and the leveling for under-leveled characters goes pretty fast. The real headache of playing on Hard is that the encounter rate can get annoying.