Alright, so I've been playing the Beta now for a while and I still am not entirely sure on how character development is supposed to work.
I re-installed after the recent patch and built up my Kyra/Merisiel again. I played through all of B and 1 (which I had purchased with gold pre-patch) to get their feats and some new cards in their decks. After I had done this plus some higher difficulties, I had enough gold to unlock Seoni.
At this point, I brought her into the party and sent them all back to the first B scenario so she could get the same selection of feats/chance of cards that the others did. However, when I did this, both Kyra and Merisiel were completely reset. Their decks had none of the cards I had earned, none of the feats were present, and I'm not sure what the expected user experience should be.
On reading the initial post, I'm a bit confused. What is the point of "benching" characters? How are we supposed to switch between the various "instances" of characters? Also, when I went to a higher difficulty on some missions, it seemed like my cards were also being reset.
So, before I get into any opinion-based stuff, I just wanted as clear an answer as possible: what is the expected user experience when it comes to character management, progression, and more? The initial post helps a little, but I'm still a bit confused (especially considering my issues above).