5th level Hold Person

Guys, this is a serious and complicated issue. In fact, the major plot arc in the Narbohring 2 campaign (the essence rings of Barrowsreich) was designed around this problem.

Priests pray to gods to make things happen on earth. So shouldn't a cleric be able to cast a more powerful version of Hold Person, say, at 4th or 5th Circle, with more targets and/or more severe penalties to saves?

The problem is, compare a 5th circle Hold Person to the real 5th Circle combat spells: Flame Strike and Slay Living. A 5th circle Hold, if things scale up like the Cure spells do, should be strictly much better than Slay Living and generally better than Flame Strike.

Thoughts?