Actually, it was a lot better in Demon's Souls. For one thing, there weren't that many giant bipedal enemies and when there were, like the 1-2 boss, they had some ways to get you away from their feet. The 1-2 boss would jump back and forth which would damage you, he'd stomp around or bash his shield for a big AoE attack.
Cheesing bosses by sticking close to them is only a problem in Dark Souls. Demon's Souls didn't have a problem with that and I'm sure From Soft will work out a way to fix it in DkSII. Just like they fixed the backstab fishing problem for regular enemies.