Hehe. That's not fair! "The best main character is Baccata". With a main characters, I mean the guys which you can choose at the start of the game!

Ak'shel is really good at the 'hard' places in the Lands; he's the best healer, since the healing amount is not dependend on anything and he has the most MP.
Conrad does get the first mage level faster, but Michael get's the second one faster. In the end, it only matters 4 MP, so therefore I do not consider Conrad a better mage than Michael.
About the experience points: are the values cumulative? I mean, do you need to gain 500 experience points for level 2 and another 1000 for level 3? Or do you need 1500?
I believe throwing stuff nets you about 1 exp.; you mentioned that an item in the start of the game is non-throwable, right? Well, if you keep picking it up and throw it really fast, you can get to Rogue level 3 (or even 4 if you got to much time) in 15 minutes time! Useful if you are having problems and want some easy extra HP.
I know Vortex doesn't do anything, but I was considering why it has ever existed!
I don't really like spells with high MP cost, since you need to rest so long and monsters get generated while you rest.
Did you know you can reset the monster spawning time by saving and reloading? A cheap way to get past difficult area's!