Maybe you aren't getting the concept?
I understand your concept, I just disagree that the idea that a
character is not observing their environment exists.
Now, an alert character, acting on player instructions, might do things which give bonuses or even remove the need for a roll to observe.
But absent that the character is still observing what they can of the world. The DM has a set of tools to determine what the character experiences, such as vision modes (for seeing in darkness), languages known (for understanding written words), and perception for awareness.
The DM uses these tool as the filter to know what to describe of the world. A character, living in the world and experiencing it, can notice things the player does not think to ask about - just like in real life you may notice something walking down the street that was not a conscious decision to observe.
A simple example is a strong smell. Players may not think to ask if they smell something odd, but the DM should determine if the characters do and if so relay that information to the appropriate players (if any). That's a key facet of the DM's job - determining what the characters experience and giving that information to the players.
Passive scores are a gamist shorthand for the DM so you have a DC to compare things like NPC stealth or sleight of hand checks against PCs instead of needing them to roll all the time (and potentially picking up information from the need for a roll).
The fact that the Observant feat is poorly designed -- and I agree with you that it is and for the same reason -- is only an argument against that feat and should be taken against it directly.
We like it. You aren't going to ever convince me or our table otherwise. If you continue trying to do that, you are wasting your time.
I even mentioned before that your table may be happy with it. That doesn't change that in a public discussion I wish to call out that this rule seriously impacts the probabilities -- important information for others who would consider this. Maybe it will work well for them as well, just go into it informed.
(( Sorry for the lack of structure. For some reason the post is removing paragraph and line breaks so it is just one big paragraph... Hope they get this fixed.))
No problems, I was having the same issues. They upgraded ENworld to https and there's a bit of an issue with linefeeds in the WYSIWYG editor. Changing to one of the others for now seems to put them back.
Actually, I hit preview and it seems to be working again so maybe it's already fixed.