For some reason, Sengoku Rance has also been the first title in the series for many people, and, perhaps, that has made them think more of the title, in general.
I keep seeing people saying Rance 7 is THE best. I honestly can't understand for the life of me why people do seriously believe that.
Oh, that's easy. Sengoku Rance was the very first game in the franchise to see an English fan translation done back in.... I want to say 2012? And relative to the time, SR was miles ahead of anything else being produced at the time in terms of hentai or porn games. The game had actual gameplay, even if it was an ultra-streamlined turn based strategy game. The game had a large cast of characters that would steer into just about any aesthetic you liked and had an actual plot that was willing to be silly about as often as it wanted to be serious.
This was crazy, especially for the time. Most hentai games were either glorified graphic novels or straightforward methods of delivering smut to the viewers, SR was a hentai game that wasn't shy about also being a good game and having a decent (Silly? Ridiculous? Yes, absolutely. Entertaining? Yes) plot while still delivering on the promise of being an eroge.
Honestly sounds like you're chafing under the design of the game. Which is fine, but it just means the game isn't for you. It's pretty obvious why they added a time limit, ability flags and made the objective not to wipe squads but to win the momentum meter- that simple change allows for much dynamic design and doesn't reduce every single match to, "who has bigger numbers?" Also prevents certain units from going nuts- musketeers without a limit on firing would be busted. Suzume and Isoroku would be busted if they could just spam their penetrating attacks all match. Every play through of R7 would turn into a tedious snowball without those critical changes.
. Outside of that, it's just rance gallivanting around with his old girls finding new girls.
That's every Rance game. And to it's credit, Sengoku Rance starts it's plot as Rance being on vacation with Sill.