Although even if you take that out of it, you can still have the AI losing with heroes and getting 2-3 beefed-up injuries and essentially being useless.  After all, they can never "save and reload".

I will agree that the people trying to balance the game should NOT give ANY thought to the fact that people can save and reload if they get a result they don't like.  It's something inherent in the nature of the game, if the game designers start worrying about it, they are worrying about the wrong thing.   (now, if they make code that makes random events/quests/etc spawn in advance, so you can't dodge them by reloading to the turn before them, that's different, but for things like battles and scars the situation will be different every time a player plays, so there is no way to "force" it to happen)

What needs to be taken into consideration is that stardock is attempting to widen their audience to turn a profit on this game. Appealing to the 'average' gamer will require marketing a game that is not frustrating. If the player feels the need to reload the game every time one of their heroes fall in battle they will have a less positive impression, and also be less likely to recommend it to friends.

I really like the idea of army benefits at personal losses, but I think something as simple as "Your hero looks cooler" would suffice. Small penalties are the better way to go with this system, and higher difficulties could impose harsher hero injuries. The only penalty I care about is the -1 con to army thing. And I would reload for that! Otherwise broken noses, missing ears.. all of them are inconsequential.

Injuries that make me not want to let that hero die, but not make me care enough to reload. -2 to a stat, loss of xp (based on current level), temporary penalties (like moves -1 or coward for 20 turns) are the sort of thing I would like to see introduced. Certain injuries should have pre-requisites. Like champions can't get coward if that unit is level 10+ since the effect might be non-existant. That said though.. I don't see this as being a priority, and until we see the changes in balance to champions as a result of further playtesting, this is the last thing I want to see addressed.

Until the AI is fixed, increasing the penalties from injuries would be a very very bad idea.

Do we really want heroes to become truly crippled?  Are there enough of them for this to work? 

Hey, I saw one random monster kill a non-recruited Champion in one of my last games.

How do you justify such crippling injuries with magic healing?

I would only see it as acceptable if it could be "cured" by spending some turns in a city (maybe require a magic technology and a city structure)

You know, I wouldn't have such a hard time understanding your point if you kept yourself from the namecalling, LordRikerQ. It really drives away sympathy, don't you know?

Hmmm, i think game developers should care about the save and load option, because if the penalty for doing something wrong or bad luck is harsh a player will more likely load the last save, but there could be another option called "Ironman" for players who like a harsher penalty.

People can lower difficulty to Novice and they won't be losing Champions. Or games for that matter. So they don't risk losing a game and have an unfun experience.

It's not about FE being an Excel file with fancy 3D graphics but neither a Powerpoint presentation.

It's up to the developers to implement a sound game design.  Does the proportion of people who are saving and reloading in a strategy game have any bearing on whether the game is a market success or failure?  Do people save and load chess games because they made a bad move?

When I play the computer I am hitting the redo button on my moves all the time... 

Am I guilty of hitting the reset?  Sure.  Some games, like Mount and Blade Warbands, let you set the game so you can't do that, but you also don't die if you get defeated, you might have to go find your companions, and build up your army again after you escape imprisonment, but you live to fight another day.  I think the wounds are the idea to do that, to give the players a playable consequence to their failures that is interesting,   and something to try and avoid, but not be crippling.  

There's already restoration potions that heal all injuries...