dtgreene: That's one of the many ugly mechanics in Wizardry 6-7 that make me not want to play these games, to be honest. The "base miss chance" mechanic is another one.
(Also, the term used in these games I'm pretty sure is "class", not "job".)
I also don't like how Wizardry 6 took away the ability to go back to town to rest, recruit new characters, and change your party composition.
HIRO kun: I completely agree to be honest. I prefer wiz 1-5 to 6-8. The reason for it is what you have said. Although I think wiz 6 itself is enough good game.
The problem with Wizardry 1-5 (or, more precisely, Wizardry 1-3 and 5) is how the game forcibly autosaves when bad things happen, creating a permadeath mechanic, and I *really* don't like that. Hence, I will only play those games with save states. (I think I beat Wizardry 1 without loading a state, but it was the Apple 2 version, and I used a well-known glitch to instantly earn 100 million XP.
(Wizardry 4 is different; the game uses manual saves, with 8 slots, but saving kicks you out to the title screen and reloading reloads the level, with enemies respawned.)