Despite the fact that we disagree I applaud this post. We can't reach any sort of consensus about anything until both sides understand the other side. So I appreciate your point of view and honesty on this matter.
I agree that for many people the dissociation between the player and the character is not a great concern. I can guess that this is true for a number of reasons. That is their experience. They play more casually and they think of it as a game just like monopoly. Now I'm not saying the game IS monopoly or that the game IS like a board game. I'm just saying that your commitment level and attitude is similar. That's all.
For me I've just always been the kind of DM and player who really loves a well detailed and immersive world. I like getting to the character. So perhaps this is why I see things my way. I'm not saying you can't enjoy a detailed world either. Just saying how I perceive maybe I came to my own preferences.
I'm not sure what the ultimate game solution is other than try to keep in mind people's preferences when doing design and when a particular goal is achievable with different approaches seek the least offensive one for all parties involved.
Possibly it would help to explain what dumps me out of the narrative and what keeps me there. And to me the logic matters a whole lot less than the results - especially as combat is in some way an abstraction anyway.
AD&D with its one minute combat turns dumps me hard. Combat is a fast, dangerous, and rapidly unfolding situation to which adaption is essential - and my PC only gets to reassess once every minute? I'm instantly gone (and never mind quite how tough this makes kobolds to kill - killing a kobold a minute is fast work whereas killing a dragon in a minute in 4e is incredibly slow). Minute long combat rounds are therefore anathema for any sort of visualisation to me. I'm therefore out for anything except PC as pawn stance. Too much is going on which I can't react to.
6 seconds on the other hand is a little long for an
OODA loop but not very - it's about the right order of magnitude. Near enough to the regularity with which I assess and rethink as opposed to execute to be believable. A bit too slow, but not entirely ridiculous especially as we're zoomed out in the game rules to a distance of five foot squares. It gives me time but means that combat hasn't passed in the blink of an eye.
My next test is whether I can actually behave like myself in combat using my reenactment experience. As a sword and shield fighter, I bully people. My shield, more than most peoples, is a second weapon. Either straight and coming forward right in their face to blind them or, worse yet, edge on and cutting their sword arm and head off from the rest of their body. The first at the very least drives them back most of the time. And if I can't drive back people my size in open combat without either spending a feat (I haven't invested that much in it) or giving up an attack roll to do it (this really isn't a bull rush), I can't behave like myself in combat. I literally need something like Tide of Iron to be a default option to be able to behave as myself in combat.
Which isnt to say Tide of Iron and AEDU is the only possible way to do it, of course. The Hammer Hands stance is functionally equivalent. Either way without short distance forced movement as a default option I can't behave like myself. Which is a complete fail. 3.X non-casters throw me out because I simply don't have this level of flexibility to behave like myself. It's ... viable. But leads to the martial classes standing there trading blows - which is not what I want to do or do on open skirmishy combat myself. I don't have the options or the tactics, so I don't feel anything like as in control. I'm responding rather than, as I actually try to do, creating the chances.
Then we come to encounter powers. As a 4e encounter power mine is Passing Attack. It's using the blinding effect of my shield, described above, (or just a blow - I don't need a shield to do it) to distract the guy I'm fighting so I can disengage and engage with someone else from an angle they weren't expecting. About once a fight when I'm not an early casualty (I never claimed to be that skilled) is about right - and Passing Attack is a really good example because if it misses there's no functional difference from an At Will attack. At Will + Encounter therefore fits me a
lot better than just At Wills. Now it's not a process-sim, but the fighter PC I've designed
behaves the way I do in a fight. The mechanics therefore allow me to reflect the person I am.
For an actual process-sim I'd need to zoom in. I can't use my various tricks that are effectively Passing Attack when my opponents are shoulder to shoulder; it's the slightly unexpected angle that makes it work - but I can when they are trying to circle me. However combat squares in 4e are five foot. If two people are adjacent this means that they can be anywhere from shoulder to shoulder (when I can't) to about six feet apart (when I might be able to). 1/encounter feels like it's about at the same level of zoom as the rest of what's mandated about the battle.
Now if you want to try to associate the encounter powers for Martial characters by using a Bo9S Crusader style recharge mechanism for encounter powers, or even a 13th Age style random rider my only argument is going to be that
for me this adds needless complexity. But if it's what you need for your immersion to happen then I'd be absolutely fine hacking a 4e class or two to enable this. (Hell, I'd be delighted - the more playing the merrier). But if what you want is for me to lose
my encounter powers you've just taken away my ability for a PC to behave the way either I or a lot of fictional characters I want to emulate do. And thereby taken away a lot of
my immersion. And if you want to force me to play what is to me a needlessly more complicated class by forcing the Crusader recharge mechanic on them I'm going to be slightly annoyed.
(Oh, also, in response to your "Why, why?" what could I possibly say that hasn't already been said a thousand times in a thousand different ways?)
