My players are more of the acting/hardcore simulationist crowd...you should see the roleplaying we had in friday's session..not a single dice used for about 2.5 hours out of a 4 hour mini session (I say mini since normally we play saturdays for 10-14 hour sessions).
From experience, with my friends sister as an example, i found that letting peoplesolve stuff for real was much better. I had a dungeon, that for an actual logical reason had lots of traps and puzzles, but i make peoplesolve them for real. Int/wis checks only give clues. AT the start, she had issues with complex problem solving, etc. That was some years ago. Now..whenever she has to roleplay, orsolve something, or answer something..she'sright there in the front trying her best, and her problem solving has gotten better.
My decision..if this style can help someone actually get better at stuff in real life...more confidence, better at solving/crtiical thinking, etc..then screw the rules/dice rolls..my was is better.
However, since they are actor styleplayers, a few times they've had characters with very low stats in like int, etc and they have tried as well as they could to act it out realistically....in one game, with a freind DMing, one player had a very low int and wisdom, so he played someone of a mentally challenging person, whom the groupcleric, was able to bring over and sucumb to his religion/god (people with low wisdom, etc would IMHO be easier to sway to stuff like churches, gods, etc)...and that player acted following the cleric around and acting like some dumb follower..
it was brilliant roleplaying and we had to applaud it afew times after sessions...
Sanjay