Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
You are ignoring the role of a referee (umpire, etc.) in a game. They stop the game, usually, to make a call. It can be done while the game continues on, but the actual players who are playing the game to achieve goals in it need to be informed of the judgment calls. Of course, most players are refereeing themselves and others too, but neutral referees are used - as in D&D - to insure adherence to the rules.
The game is never stopped unless the game is rained out or something. What they do is stop the time clock and/or active play, but not the game itself. Rulings are a part of the game, as are instant replays, and so on. The DM is also not purely a referee. That's one of his many roles, and a minor one at that, but it's not who he is. Most of the DM's roles do not involve judgment calls or rulings.
#2This is most blatantly obvious when we recognize the rest of the world understands game walkthroughs to beat computers games as cheating rather than attempting to play the game for one's self.
Computer games are not sit down RPGs and cannot be used as a comparison. Apples and oranges.
#3 & #4
Also, boardgames are mazes because they represent a geometric design for a game. Some folks can toss the chess board aside and still continue the game because the pattern is in their imagination. Something every D&D player struggles to do better.
I have run improv dungeons with no preset map, coming up with stuff on the fly in my head, and I rarely map out wilderness. Despite those claims in those quotes, they are not required.
Maybe you don't know about roleplaying in the 50s-70s after the war, but it wasn't about fictional personas. D&D is the iconic RPG as the term roleplaying was used in army wargame simulations. They taught soldiers their role. D&D is a game where players improve their ability to perform their role (class) by mastering the game system it refers to. They can prove this and increase needed class abilities to more easily overcome and accomplish higher level challenges and objectives by scoring points relating to their roleplaying.
So what. That D&D can be used like that does not make that the intent of the game. From day 1, D&D has been about taking on a persona and creating a mutual story, as well as all the rest.
Improvising a personality wasn't part of roleplaying in the RPG community until the 80s. Personality stuff was also fun to do, but like in any game it can interfere with a person trying to play a game.
And yet Gygax and his players did so before then with D&D.
I'm glad I could help you learn more about where the hobby we're in comes from and what D&D is. I too, am not trying to stop you from having fun your way - collaboratively telling stories with your friends.
Where the hobby comes from has no relevance. If where things came from meant that you were that thing still, we would all still be single cell creatures in sludge, despite being human. D&D is not a war game, even if its roots came from war games.