The stats are appropriately thematic at the moment. This would also make the game considerably harder (you often need the Wi for ACW), so I vote against.

I can see your point with the thematic stats, although Willpower/Water, Strength/Fire and (maybe) Dexterity/Air are somewhat weak relationships.

About making the game considerably harder I must disagree. For some characters 10 Wi can be helpful but others can benefit more from other stats. Besides, Willpower can be easily raised with Morgia (at least in 1.1.1, not sure about the changes on this subject).

Willpower is now subject to your potential limit when training with herbs. This has the potential to make the ACW much harder because he can confuse you (as if he wasn't hard enough already). The 10 Wi from the water orb helps offset this. (actually, willpower/water is the only one that I think is somewhat weak)

To, Wi, and Dx are capped at your potential max for herb training. With a low Wi R/C, you could easily expect to finish the game with <20 Wi.

The themes make perfect sense to me. There's even a Mad Minstrel song about the ties (written by me, admittedly).

Exactly my thoughts.

Fire/Strength is a weak relationship, but the other two make perfect sense.

Water is the ultimate irresistable force - it just keeps pushing and pushing at things until it sweeps them away. Hence, willpower.

Air is highly dynamic, moving in all sorts of directions freely. Hence, dexterity.

On the other hand, I'd associate earth with strength, not fire. Fire, I'd probably associate with Learning, Mana, Perception, or Charisma. Learning because of its association with study, Mana because it's energy, Perception because it lets you see things, and Charisma because of fiery personalities. Of these, Learning is probably the best choice in context, as Perception and Charisma aren't important enough, and Mana is already suited more to the Mana orb.

Fire causes damage, associated with raw strength. Note that the fire temple is the only one to contains giants, which obviously have a strength focus. Earth is hard to hurt, thus its association with the defensive toughness stat.

Fire definitely shouldn't be associated with learning - it burns books ;)

Fire is the most active and destructive of the elements, so strength makes perfect sense to me. Although I always found Wi for water a bit weird, but Aielyn's interpretation is surprisingly good.