Jord,
What makes you think you are off to a slow start?? From what I could tell from your other posts, you seem right on target for this point in the game.
If you check in the BEST TIPS thread, you will find a post about playing the first section of the game (crypt area) and then resetting the game to replay it all again - as a means of pumping up characters early on. Perhaps that strategy would be to your liking.
For first game through, I prefer the full 6 party. THere is more protection and it is easier to carry more loot and stuff. It is easier to spread the skills out among more characters too.
For my own first party I had 1 warrior, 1 rogue, 2 priest and 2 mages. I found that a very good starting party and once I started changing their roles, very flexible.
As far as backing up your saves - if you are saving to more than one slot you should be fine unless you have other problems on your machine which might cause damage to all your gamexx.sav . For any one game, I keep 4 different saves going : 1 for town, 1 for out side a dungeon and 1 or 2 for within the dungeon. I've never had to go back too far in my game to correct a mistake or accident
Hope that is of some help!
Wyv