I guess the more important question is the role of combat in the game. Is it one aspect of the game or the reason for playing?
To me EW the game is about Role Play (after all there were precursors to D&D that were about wargaming, if D&D had been designed merely to be a wargame then improved versions of those other games should have been sufficient) not Combat Role Play.
Of course combat is an important aspect of Role Play because it allows one to overcome dangerous opponents and living obstacles (which are often far more interesting to overcome than inanimate obstacles), but it is not the reason for the game, it is an aspect of the game.
Therefore things like hit points and armor class and so forth are merely tools to address certain aspect-problems of the game (specifically combat in this case), not meant to wholly define the game itself.
I personally am less than enthused or inspired by the idea that everything in the game must be optimized towards the intention of "killing." I am very much in favor of characters possessing tactical skill and capability (to a high degree in some cases), but not a
"tactical destiny."
Killing effectively is an important in-game combat skill, but once again it is a situational tool (and in cases of combat should be optimized for the task at hand, after all any tool should be fit for the task) but killing is not the point of the game, it is merely a capability. One capability among others. It's like saying the only job of a cop is to
"shoot criminals." Yes, shooting criminals might very well be an important task, and in some cases, the most important task a cop can perform, but it is far from his only task, skill, job demand, or capability. Imagine how effective a cop would be in the real world, any world, if his only "Role-ability" were to shoot criminals. Most of the time he'd be completely useless, awaiting only those rare moments when he actually need shoot a criminal.
Turning every spell and every device and every intention and every adventure and every encounter into a killing contest merely devolves the game into a highly decorated tactical wargame. Just a wargame with Elves instead of archers and dwarves instead of grunts and Wizards instead of artillery men. Magic becomes nothing more than a sort of arcane ammunition depot, clerics merely advanced field medics, and endless fighting becomes the point of life, not as aspect of it. Combat becomes the role, the point of existence. War and combat become the eternal reasons. And a role play game is not a wargame (it can and should in my opinion often encapsulate and encompass things like tactical combat and wargaming, but it should not be limited by them), but instead it is by very definition role-play.
If the only role any character ever does play or ever seeks to play is that of a combatant then by definition you have a wargame, not a role-play game. Though in the case of D&D a tactical wargame, not a strategic one. Meaning even the fights have no real purpose other than "winning the fight and taking spoils."
I don't like the trend among later editions of the game, and I fully understand the rebellion against this trend and impulse, of devolving the game into a mere dressed-up excuse for endless fighting. And usually fighting for no real purpose other than to fight and kill and get stuff without anything else of real importance occurring at all.
If the point of the game is endless combat then it of course makes sense to have creatures with thousands of hit points, an armor class of 79, and who can reach level 57 and deal out 120 points of damage a piece per combat round. But then again all you really have in a game like that is a biological version of a Mech-Droid shooting Warlock bolts instead of plasma cannons. What you have done is taken a role play game and created a table-top Arcade Game out of it. There is no character destiny, no in-game point or purpose, no magic, no miracle, no objective other than the fight.
Implicit in a Role-Play game is the implication
that players and characters have a Role to Fulfill, not just a Role to war-play.