Having played Dawn of Souls on the Game Boy Advance, I agree with this review. Final Fantasy II was innovative for its time, but suffers from many frustrating gameplay mechanics, like the ones you described. It says a lot when one advertisement for Dawn of Souls points out that the remake tried to fix the original progression system- even those promoting the game knew the original version had a terrible leveling system.
I will second that, as well as add that while I happily spent hours doing all the bonus dungeons in Dawn of Souls I, the terrible gameplay meant I never finished the theoretically more interesting whole new campaign for II.
That said, I will slightly push back against the idea that the characters are completely boring. Yes, the main cast is a little bland (to the point I was more attached to the self-made personalities I came up with for the cast in I), but this was the first game to integrate a rotating set of guest stars, and while the terrible gameplay undermined them, I do feel they represented a decent set of shades and variety.
Also, while hopelessly dated today, I feel the keyword system was a noble failure in trying to add, essentially, modern dialogue trees to the series.
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Pixel-Remaster: The worst of the 2D Final Fantasys
Since its release in 1987 FFII has had numerous re-releases, each serve to make the game marginally better, like adding full saving and removing stat-atrophy but still unable to fix the game's fundamental issues. The Pixel Remasters ups the artwork and OST once more, and adds a checklist feature, auto-battle, and minimap.
PLOT: I'll give the game credit for having an original plot, a consistent antagonist, and not ripping off AD&D. Sadly it did come a console-generation too early so none of the characters are all that developed, outside of Firion being a virgin and Guy speaking Beaver. The moment you get the airship is a wet fart since there's no new music, no new places to go to, and half the places you could go to get nuked before then.
PROGRESSION: A system where your core stats increase after every battle is a good idea. A system where you have to manually level-up every weapon-type and magic-spell for them not to be useless is a terrible idea. This progression was better done in the later Saga series though its utterly botched appearance meant it never returned in Final Fantasy. What's the point of buying a Flare spell in the last dungeon if it's completely worthless unless you grind?
DUNGEONS: Absolutely irredeemable. About two-thirds of the game's maps are sprawling dungeons with high encounter-rates, branching paths that span multiple floors, and numerous doors that lead to rooms containing nothing but an enemy ambush. FFI's dungeons felt like a product of the time, FFII's dungeons are actively horrible and date the experience far more than I or III.
ART & MUSIC: They're fine, but nothing remarkable.
CONCLUSION: FFII is hard, oddball, experimental, and ultimately not rewarding. You can safely skip this one as none of its innovations continue into the rest of the series, and the concepts it did introduce are done better in the immediate sequel, the excellent Pixel-Remaster of Final Fantasy III.