When your fighting multible mobs, do you sleep the one your hitting? Notised it plenty of times myself and like the way its done. Dont know the ryhme or reason behind it though.
That's because GMs aren't supposed to answer those kinds of questions, and they never have been. Of course, the better ones, like Harquva, will do exactly what you said -- at least try to entertain you instead of saying "sorry, but our Rules & Policies prevent me from commenting," or something similarly dry.
Its the AI improvements; Ultima loves to hit support jobs with Holy 2.