Xeshra: It is surely difficult to follow your perception and ultimately the things you seem to enjoy, but more than anything the things able to turn you off, even if very specific and as a whole not able to "destroy" a game, at least for most of us,
What can be said for sure, you do not enjoy to get yourself "bend" to another reality or another approach. Yet, there is still a thing known as "fate" and to some extend it seems almost impossible to avoid this fate. Basically a certain condition and behavior that can be described as "destiny". I am almost sure, in order to understand your approach it comes down to understand your "approach" toward life and its fate. You might not be willing to accept some of the "bad fate" surrounding the existence of many humans nor their games,
I mean, i am by my very nature, pro-biotic, i do write the "pro" in separated letters in order to reveal its meaning even better. Although, there are lifeforms that are not probiotic, instead they are a-biotic, so they are against life and in this term even against any sort of growth or increase. Because their very nature is in order to deplete and transform something back to its "most broken down shape"... in order to build something new, out of its "ashes". A unforgiving cycle which is part of the nature... many probiotic beings try to overcome but at some point still fail doing so. Ultimately most of us may say, the only thing truly absolute is death, yet... not even death can be considered absolute, as there might be a new living shape we got no clue about.
When it comes to "stat growth"... it is clear that many creators got a different perception. Some creators got in mind a stat growth should be handled with a lot of bad fate... as this seems to be the cruel-hearted fate of many humans along with their characters. The creators with a more "progressive" mind may think those stats should be pretty flexible, able to become changed and adapted in a pretty self-determined way. This is basically a very probiotic view, yet many of the creators are rather something in between or even actually pretty abiotic.
Some creators, such as Nippon Ichi (Disgaea series) actually allow near unlimited stat growth; although, it is on the base of the fact that those characters actually are undead, so they already has "passed" their main form of existence, along with their natural fate. Else... they may, comparable to almost any other creator... consider it unrealistic. Some of them may not even care stats growth at all and are just putting those stuff inside a game so it does not look completely odd... because they may have in mind "humans can barely change and if so... it will take a lot of time and effort". Which might be true for a majority controlled by a majority, but not for every individual.
Anyway, what do i want to truly say, related to a actually complicated topic? I seem to basically understand your "source" of mental shape and that you seem to be pretty progressive related to this shape; so you do expect the same from a game and many of the stuff you are going into touch with. However... this is maybe a difficult spot: Being able to accept "another reality" without suffering some high discrepancy within your heart; in the end resulting into the incapability to even accept this "other reality". I think it is important to realize and notice those different sort of "existence" along with their shape, and by itself is is not wrong; yet indeed it can be flawed if it is unable to support the very own shape which might be considered very precious. We can only agree to disagree at a certain point, sure, but it still can help a lot trying to get "the bigger picture" as it might reduce any sort of aversions and therefor the own capabilities might increase.
Ah yes, i do consider myself an "RPG expert" as this is my main genre; so naturally i think a lot about the philosophy of stats as this is a very important RPG-element. The only difference, vs. you, is that i do have a higher tolerance toward those different approaches as i try to understand their mental shape and whats actually behind. Some stuff can be considered good and some stuff i do feel bad about, yet... in general what is most important to me is the atmosphere and art count of a game... and a good "character growth" is simply a nice bonus i do enjoy a lot.
First, I don't like being screwed out of ever being able to max my stats for any reason other than a conscious decision that has trade-offs. (However maxing stats is defined, of course; it's OK if my white mage doesn't raise strength to the maximum possible value, as long as it can reach the maximum value that a white mage could get.)
Secondly, there are certain playstyles that I dislike, and that I typically consider it bad design for a game to encourage:
* Having to constantly reset the game because you got a bad roll at level up time, or because a boss (that can't be refought) failed to drop an item whose drop can't be made up later (by a renewable source of that item, for example). (Or, for that matter, because of random non-respawning treasure; it's probably the one major issue I have with Wizardry 8, which avoids these other issues).
* Having to intentionally avoid XP in order to get max possible stats later. Thing is, I don't like it when I have to avoid or run from battles to get perfect characters, or at least decent characters.
* Having to purposefully avoid XP to avoid level ups that make me weaker.
