Gah, what the hell. I couldn't get it to run at a proper speed at all.
You're seriously going to write it off as unenjoyable just because of that?
It works fine for me too, and that was with GsDX (or whatever it's called) version 9xx or something. I recently updated it to 16xx. Let's just say thatI had a nother game that would chug at 4fps (yes, 4)... I can spew what my config settings are at if you like.
As for Ban, I prefer bosses over stages mostly too. I mean sometimes I can enjoy stages in a shmup. But most of the time, I find that they require most of the memorization in a shmup, which I HATE. Even in touhou, with its short stages, I still hate them. Almost half+ of my deaths and bombs are during stages, which is caused not by lack of skill or something. But out of failure to remember t hat "zomg wave of baddies that spam bullets like no tomorrow that nobody can possibly dodge easily spawns on the left side and oh shit I'm on the right *bomb*".
I do like my stages to be somewhat difficult provided they aren't trivilized by doing each and every part in it "right" however. I find stage 3 of stella vanity is a great example of this.