This 100%.
I play big "Open World RPG's" for Roleplaying and for fun.
And as i said there are enough reddit threads + my own personal experience that have prooven that min/maxing is not necessary. (On the normal, middle difficult. For that the game was developed and balanced.)
It's just this powergamer "min/max mindset" has not much to do with "Roleplaying."
They think because +5 is the highest possible bonus for a stat, that you can reach. That you allways have to get it, No matter what. They think that the devs even want you to play this way. But this is not true and was never their intention.

Most devs are not pretty good gamers. They don't develop an RPG with min/maxing in their mind.
Why should a Mage be as durable as a Warrior, who lives for the battle and hand to hand combat?
There are enough ways to avoid damage as a mage.
The Skyrim "Players Mindset" is the problem here. Because most of them don't play for the RPG experience.
No, they want their character to be able to do everything.
No matter how ridiculous it sounds or look, if a warrior became archmage of the college.
The Oblivion leveling system was not and never builded with the intention to allways take a +5.

And as i said there has been enough evidence collected over the years, to proof this. There are enough reddit threads with user's who played in a natural way. Not maxing endurance, just leveling their major skills and taking +2 or +3 bonuses on level up. And still ending as powerful character's.

And i am out here now.
I respect other opinions and can live with that.
Just one final word on this, especialy to the Skyrim Players.
A character that is good on everything has nothing to do with roleplaying. And yes, this also counts for character's who are like this: It does not fit my character in any way, but i also want smithing and enchanting. Because i want to be overpowered, no matter how easy the game becomes in the end.

Play by numbers is the sort of thing that appeals to me.

(It's the main reason I like many incremental games, which have a lot of numbers, some of them huge, in them.)
The issue isn't about whether to powegame, but rather than the original leveling mechanics are inherently *terrible*.

I understand that a mage optimized for spellcasting wouldn't be the most durable character (assuming I don't max Restoration/Alteration and take advantage of Fortify Health/Vitality and Shield spells), but choosing to go magic to some degree at first and raising Endurance later (because I feel like I'm dying too often) shouldn't lead to a strictly worse character long-term than one who raises Endurance first and then starts working on spell-casting.

If the game is balanced around +2 or +3 bonuses to stats, why not just give the player those bonuses automatically at level up, instead of giving characters +1 or +5 bonuses based on what skills happened to level up during that arbitrary level-up boundary.

It's not about powergaming; it's about an ugly and poorly designed system.
This claim is at odds with my experience, and what I've read. In fact, there's the problem where, if the developer thinks the game is moderately challenging, it could easily be unmanageable for typical players.

In fact, there's this quote that I stumbled across when using Google Translate on a Japanese game walkthrough:
"The author lowers the difficulty level to the point where he thinks it is a little too easy, and only then will it become moderately difficult for others," BEEP once wrote.

I was using the terms is in "Paint by numbers", i.e. the way you have to play is prescribed, and if you go off that path you have crippled yourself. I like to paint with an empty canvas where I can paint what I want, with the colors I want.

Well, if nothing else,

(a) it looks really pretty

(b) they fixed the most annoying parts of the rulesystem

(c) they fixed pretty much absolutely nothing else

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR7C4HS7f0M

To my big surprise I'm actually really tempted to get this version. I had figured I'm completely done with Elder Scrolls for good. But this actually addressed the issues I had especially with the leveling system. Running against a wall with the keyboard key pressed with a weight just so you can increase your runspeed etc. That was the main reason I in the end never really enjoyed the games.

Well, that, and Skyrim came with Steam, which I am not tolerating.

As long as characters aren't in question:P

TES has no grouping or romances or anything.

Occasionally somebody follows you and then you have the problem with their PITA scripting.

So the only character whos looks really matters is my own.

And in that regard even the original Oblivion was already pretty good.

Only romance I am interested is between me, my sword and 50k bandits we are gonna slaughter. You still have to watch those nightmare fuel inducing faces in a game during dialogues, and they are much worse than vanilla Oblivion or Skyrim, so they get big fat fail from me.

Skyrim has marriage, but like so much of the game, it's optional. (It also has no gender restrictions, from what I recall.)

OK, but neither Morrowind nor Oblivion have it, and thats the two TES games I've played. And still own on DVD with all addons.