1)I'm not sure that specific saving locations is anymore an artificial way of raising the difficulty than saving at anytime is of lowering it.
I dislike the ability to win a fight by just saving and trying it 5-10 times, and try to avoid the temptation. I don't always succeed

It does seem many games are designed expecting that behavior.
How would Dominions play if it was standard practice to restore and run a turn again if a battle didn't go your way. Maybe tweak the orders a little...
2) I'd agree with this, though I'm not in the habit of saving often and thus wind up doing this even when I can. More frustrating to me would be not being able to save where I am when I need to stop playing.
3) Backward in time? Was this ever standard on PC games? Back to old text adventures (dating myself) saving at will has been common.
Of course, I'm an old nethack addict so I've always been fond of the save and quit approach. It takes a different style of game though.