As someone who will always love Persona 3 more than Persona 4, I agree with a lot of your assessment. I particularly agree that Persona 3 is a more cohesive artistic statement than Persona 4, which is something I've always loved about it and I've not seen anyone else bring up (or at least not that I remember anyway).
I've never seen 3 as especially grindy, since I found the combat much easier than in 4, but I do think that one of its biggest problems is the progression through the late middle part of the game. I'd argue that the combat in January is worth it, because to me it was satisfying to watch the characters powering through the last dungeon section together. Not to mention that it's kind've cool to enter that last Tartarus block and hear where that music's been building to all that time (though if it was getting frustrating, video is a decent substitute for it ;D).
There are some attempts to get over the pacing in Persona 3 Portable, though they don't totally succeed. The female protagonist route does solve a lot of the social link problems. There's no forced dating and you have access to social links with all of your party members. IMO, the writing in those s.links is better than anything in the original game or 4. Interestingly enough, the S.links with female party members are largely unchanged, save for Fuuka's, which is drastically altered, thank whatever.
If you have some free time, I'd recommend at least checking out some of the FeMC stuff on youtube.
Thanks for posting! Enjoyed reading this.
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