You say that, but really WIDR is often better. Because Red Dragons don’t waste half their turns trying to summon shit and they really like to breathe fire on things. I don’t recall Demons summoning at all in the OG, so I assume this is a change that came about because of BT2/3 mechanics? Liches are pretty garbage for the same reason (and that they don’t like… cast spells, they just hit one thing most of the time).
Also, as you alluded to, MIBL is one of the best offensive spells in the entire game only really falling off a bit at the very, very end and even then it’s still pretty useful if you have 2+ people casting it.