I mean, I respect the hell out of it for basically inventing JRPGs, having great music and art, and some of my favourite series are parodys of it (Earthbound/Mother).
But lord help me, I just cannot get into this series. It's stories and world building suck. It's so very, very chuddy in its values and characters. All about birthright and bloodlines (Something that's putting me off the Zelda and Fire Emblem series too as I get older). It's also got that Square Enix sexism stink that I find myself being less tolerant of the older I get.
Please feel free to roast me for this opinion, it's just my personal preference after all.
If you like the Dragon Quest series I would love to hear why, because I want to like it. Maybe I just haven't played the right one. I've only played 8 to completion on the PS2 back when I was a kid, and I tried the Demo of 11 but wasn't really gelling with them changing the iconic presentation of their battles, if that makes sense (a nitpick, I know)
Nah, you're spot on with the biggest problems in the series. In many ways it's as stagnant a series as Pokemon. And a lot of the stuff that was cliche and cringy 20 years ago is even more so today. 11 is mostly pretty good, but there are quite a few moments that just ruin a character for me, for no reason other than a lame cliche anime joke that was overplayed back in the 90s.
Though if you played 11 (or a demo) you can swap it back to traditional battles in the options menu. I did that straight away.