High ceiling and low floor. A lot of my favorite games are sandbox, they actually have mechanics that take advantage of it. Some other games it just makes it a chore to play.
You play enough games and you see the same honey select characters and assets over and over again. AI is a welcome change, even if you gotta filter through some garbage at first.
Depends entirely on the developer. Some games have 10-20, but they look and act differently enough that I can tell them apart. Some games have 4 different girls that are exactly the same.
Some of my favorite games are uncompleted (pending they keep their quality of course). There are also so many unpolished (abandoned) diamonds in the rough. The community also keeps on growing, so I think this is just your nostalgia talking.
A lot of people put themselves into the shoes of the protag, so of course they want the harem. I play games like im watching an interactive porno, so the more the merrier.
A lot of the things mentioned are just fetishes you aren't in to, read the tags/planned tags carefully and you shouldn't have this problem. What really ruins games are pandering to to casuals when the game blows up a bit.