I 'gotta admire your honesty in posting this, and hope you didn't get pelted by too many half bricks from the many who clearly don't see it that way.
I personally don't think Demon's Souls is bad at all, because it's designed that way, but I agree with you completely and won't be playing the game after trying a friend's import for exactly the reasons you state.
The approach it takes is just not for me, however I think 'bad' means a failure to achieve your design goals - for example bad aiming in an FPS or something like that. There is no doubt Demon's Souls is designed to give exactly the experience you got, therefore I don't think it's bad just not to your (or my) taste in terms of gameplay mechanics.
I just couldn't grind like that either - but I do kind of admire the crazy masochists who do. It's like when I see someone with a Platinum Trophy for Wipeout HD and I think how mad they must be to stick with a game that hard to get that result, but admire the effort.
Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...
