to be fair, a good chunk of those complaints aren't owlcat. they are paizo. owlcat is just using paizo's pathfinder rules. i really like pathfinder's setting but i REALLY don't like how focused on min/maxing the rules are. it's designed from the ground up by and for min/maxer's and autists. the rest of us normies have to play on crayon eater difficulty just to hit a target.
Normal difficulty is even 2 steps lower than Core.
To me it's a combination of flaws in the original game rules and in the game engine trying to emulate those rules. Instead of fixing it, they're just rolling with it and building on top of it. The first thing is they let all sorts of bonuses stack that shouldn't stack (e.g. Magic Vestment enhancement bonus stacks with the enhancement bonus of magic armor because the armor's enhancement bonus is rolled into the AC), which means you can get ridiculous builds.
Then they try to shore up underperforming classes (like straight monk) with overpowered items (here's a robe that only monks can wear that gives you the equivalent of wearing splint mail armor!) Unfortunately with use magic device and class dips, a bunch of other classes can use this stuff, further spiraling out of control.
The last thing is the limitations of the game engine and an unwillingness or inability to implement AI that can be smarter. Two examples include mobs will just stand in stuff like cloudkill, or they will run headlong into pits, grease, spike stones, etc. The second example is every enemy caster has a simple gimmick and never utilizes spells beyond a basic script (usually evocation spells, sometimes confusion or phantasmal putrefaction).
Did you know in PF1 a Glabrezu casts spell like abilities as a 14th level caster, and can cast Chaos Hammer, Unholy Blight, and Dispel Magic at will? My players HATED Glabrezus in PnP because they would sit in the back behind the vrocks, etc. And just dispel buffs and spam unholy blight. You start facing them at around level 10, so if they used dispel magic, theres a 70% chance they would remove a buff on each casting. Mirror image, displacement, blur, stoneskin, death ward, freedom of movement, etc.? Yeah say goodbye to some of that when Dispel Magic is spammed. Hope you have at least one heavy armor tank, chief. In Wrath Glabrezus are just bruisers that cast mirror image before they move into melee.
You could also limit resting by upping the stealth requirements to hide a party of 6 in a demon infested wasteland
(no you cant just set up camp in the middle of a dungeon that's not cleared and never get encounters because someone has a whopping +9 to stealth).
But this stuff is harder to fix. It's easier making bigger numbers on the bad guys.
