Still can't find any, checked all the way from level 4 to 17. In the original, I know they're level 4 and not too hard to come across.
Yeah. No idea at this point. Until i leveled my character up i was still finding them from time to time. Now it does seem like they got removed.
Thought it could be because of time of day/night. But i don't think it is. Thought it could be because of level since that changes some stuff, but no idea. Now i've no idea... The only thing i could think of would be maybe something related to special days? Like when it's december and you get christmas themed stuff, or halloween.
But i don't know why something like that would change a random enemy in the desert, so i don't think that's it.
I also made some new characters and explored the desert a bit, but to no avail. Just found mimics, sand witches, the ocasional demon oasis event and so on... Back on the save where i used to meet sand-trap, one of the runs in the desert was 7 consecutive monsters, all of them were Nagas. There's no way that's normal.