well, a bit harder than you're giving me credit.   you are absolutly right about weapon upgrading being more important that strength upgrading in terms of improving dps.  really, where the self imposed lvl cap hit me was my inability to weild anything but the most basic weapons, sheilds, armor.  i was never able to wield a high lightning defense shield for instance or utilize any of the heavier armor sets.  couple that with my poor vitality and it got challenging at points as almost anything (once i got to ~andor londo) could kill me in one hit - two at most.  

..part of the problem being i put most of my few availible points into attunement so i could carry a decent amount of pyromancy spells.  :P

It isn't so extreme as it seems once you get how things work.

The difficulty is what makes this game great because its the way the developer force you think before acting, it forces you to play it like a real RPG game and not like a simple hack and slash game. If the game was easy you could just go forward slashing and killing everything without the need to develop your character, to use the right gear and equipment, to explore every corner to find objects, to plan a strategy to kill a boss etc,etc. In the end the difficulty makes these games richier, but of course the first time you play it, in the early gameplay hours it can be tedious.

Hahahahaha! The game is not difficult, its just challenging. It invites you to play more seriously and pay attention. Progressing through the game as you slay demon's gives you a very rewarding feeling that is not found in any other game.

I dont think you were meant to play the game. Rushing, thinking you're chuck norris and die countless times is boring indeed.

Demon's Souls by far, It takes more skill to play, has better atmosphere, and its levels aren't annoyingly designed. That and I like the nexus and the phantoms better then the open world and hallowing.

Demon's Souls. Easily Demon's Souls for me.

Sticky White Stuff >>>>>>>>>> Praise The Sun
but the games are equal to me.

I really enjoyed both of them, but personally I like Demon Souls a bit more. I actually really liked the Nexus and having levels as opposed to the open world aspect. The games main strength is it's difficulty/punishment and rewarding feeling by beating an area/boss. So having to travel between the areas even with shortcuts just seems unneeded to me.

Also Dark Souls felt a lot easier to me. Perhaps because Demon Souls had already trained me to play the proper way? There's a few things about Dark Souls that make it a bit more friendly, for example the drake sword. You can get the drake sword VERY early on if you know how and it just makes the game a breeze up until you get a lightning weapon, which leads me to my next point. Lightning weapons are great because the damage isn't calculated by your strength or dexterity stat, but rather by the weapons on base damage. So you can save those points you would normally be putting in str and dexterity into something else like endurance and STILL do awesome damage. Which makes the game a lot easier imo. I know they lose their charm during New Game + but for the first time playing lightning weapons really take the edge off.

Though I do like some of the levels and boss from Dark Souls a bit more than Demon Souls, but as far as mechanics go Demon Souls > Darks Souls for me. But both are very good and I can't wait to see what's next.

One thing I wish Dark Souls had was World Tendencies. That's what I missed most from Demon's Souls. I loved when there was a black world tendency event and red demons spawned making the game more difficult. The gravelord covenant in Dark Souls was supposed to take care of this but the covenant is broken.
Overall I think Dark Souls is slightly better in terms of gameplay and replayability.
Hopefully in the next game the add randomization to the enemies. Knowing the exact placing and number of enemies is annoying after a while especially when co-oping. Or maybe they could change enemies placing and location with each new game.
Anyway I'm looking forward to dlc whenever it comes out for consoles.

Dark souls it was harder to me. I didn't really die much in demon souls.