There's been an undercurrent belief that these items are terrible and junk up the item list so much that if it wasn't for the fact that if it wasn't for the fact that it's required to unlock the final potions (actual good ones), no one would ever bother with the Witch Hut quest.
This is kind of interesting, because the reason they were originally put in was because people was annoyed about stages filled with Corrosive and Weakening enemies and wanted something to counter them. I guess the logical problem behind these potions goes like this
1) If the stage has enemies that all have some form of status effects, then a puny removal of 3 layers is not going to help much.
2) If the stage has only a few enemies with said effects, then they can generally be safely ignored in favor of going for something else. Due to the new dungeon generation system, except for very specific labyrinth stages it's generally very hard to get "locked" in compared to Alpha.
3) For curing Mana burn/Poison, regular potions are almost always strictly superior.
There's also opportunity costs in that you can only bring in 5 potions at max, so you're going to bring in Strength/Schenfraude which are the strongest which doesn't leave room for much customization. Most players I believe will take either WhupAzz or Reflex as their 3rd slot.
Other than "complete overhaul of these potions", let's see if we can improve them. I suggest these (maybe not all of them at once)
1) If currently under Poison/Mana Burn, cure it immediately but if not currently affected, puts up a "shield" that prevents the next occurance. This is much more useful for Mana Burn then it is for Poison I suppose because it gives an opportunity to stop the mana drain from burn, which classes like Sorcerer and Paladin would really like.
2) Cures up to 5 layers of Weakening/Corrosion (or more). This will roughly remove like 2 monsters worth I believe.
3) Picking either of these two potions as preparations gives you 2 instead of 1.
Anyone else like this or want to suggest other methods?