This might just be me, but it feels really weird to me that I cannot skip hiring a new Hero when the opportunity to recruit a new one. If I have no use for another Hero, having one forced on me just feels annoying (not to mention all those messages about them not being assigned...). The game just literally hires one for you, even if you have no use for them at the time.

Is anyone else bothered by this?

I am. I hate being "forced" by a game, a strategy game on top of that, to do anything.  If I don't want to recruit additional heroes, whatever the reason, then I don't want to be forced to do it.

But then again, I find the entire "academy" thing awkwardly implemented, forced upon the player, and somewhat ridiculous as a far as the "believability" of the universe goes, so maybe I'm not good example of the "average ES2 player" the game is being tailored for.

So in ES and EL if you DON'T hire a hero asap, and then again every time after that if you can, you're basically playing sub optimally.

Now it's a single player strategy game to most people, but heroes are so powerful that not having as many as possible is a distinct disadvantage, so why force the player to learn that, and then click a bunch of buttons every X turns, just to accomplish exactly what the current system does (get you your next hero as soon as you can have them).

For the record you can choose to hide, permenantly, the "hero is unassigned" message that pops up (along with any other) by clicking one of the buttons, and since they cost you nothing if unassigned (although if you can afford it they really always should be somewhere), there's really no downside

It's also this way to some extent due to the marketplace not yet existing.