I have started having that Esc/Tab issue randomly as well. No idea what is causing it, either. I had first encountered it after trying to buy something from a town NPC, which is why I had mentioned that. It is a pretty annoying bug, but not the worst I have seen in this game.
As to the Stamina issues: Oh God, Yes!
The +1 stamina has been like that ever since the skills and stats were reworked. You used to be able to gain some stamina regen, but after the skills were redone ... +1 stamina is all you get. It was still pretty manageable before this update.
After reading your comment, I hopped back in the game for a bit and it looks like the Dev picked up a BAN hammer, wrote NERF on it and swung it hard at Stamina.
If you attack, pause, attack, it costs you 5 stamina per swing.
If you attack, attack, finisher move, it costs you 5 stamina, 10 stamina, 10 stamina and if you are spam clicking the attack button you can nuke your entire stamina bar trying to get a single attack chain off.
It gets even better when you look at the various food that boosts stamina. They have all been cut by 50%, so instead of 90/80/50/40/30, it is now 45/40/25/20/15. (Fish stew 90/45, Berry Pie80/40, Carrot stew50/25, Bread 40/20, Grilled Fish 30/15)
I might be mistaken on this, but I think the stamina buffs on light armor was nerfed in half as well. It used to be 100ish stamina, now it is about 50ish.
If this is all 'prep work' for adding in stamina regen, that's great, but if this is just a 'let's make combat harder', it's kinda crap.