Well isn’t it the verbose DF system all over again, trimming ends on Cataclysm side? We’ve got karate here.
The “system” has just one error imho - and it’s that brutes and hulks are unforgiving killing machines, unlike their stock-green bretheren. You CHOP and PUMMEL their undead bodies hoping they are stunned more than you’re hurt; pain slows you down, drugs take a toll on your neural network, and you have a world of micromanaging particular dangers and situations ATM to cope with, too…
If zombies aim at pinning & devouring their victims, your (PC’s) aim should be to prevent them from doing so - hitting them criticaly so to slow them down, numbing them with headshots, making their attacks less ferocius as you’re bringing down the sum of their hitpoints. If everything in CataDDA has a condition/state - even zombies’ still & safe carcasses - then a live one’s ability to kill shouldn’t be a neverending maze, just because the Nearly Dead flag is as good for their brain-eating heads as anything else.