Imaro
Legend
If you're viewing them as another pile of HP to plow through you're viewing them from the perspective of a DM that wants to kill or incapacitate the party and sees that as the only way to give them a sense of threat. That's a sign of being not so great of a DM. I've found that simply making players expend more resources than they thought they would is a better tactic for that sense of urgency; not saying, "Oh no, I have more trouble asserting my dominance," but, "Yep, now they have to make greater risks if they want things to go their way because they spent more resources than they thought."
This is the same in 2E and 3E; it's just smoother. Saying, "And then the party spent eighteen hours fully healing," isn't conductive to the type of storytelling that D&D has been since 2E AD&D. It's not fantasy Vietnam anymore, where the slightest flesh wound leaves you incapacitated for days. It's heroic adventuring in the manner of the greats in mythology with one huge exception in that there's not one big bad ultrahero; it's a party of heroes. That's why 4E has done what it's done. It's about the entire group getting to feel like heroes, not just some of them and not just all of them if it's agreed to not choose the horribly imbalanced caster options present in 2E and 3E.
If you want fantasy Vietnam, which is attractive in some cases, just play OD&D. If you want high fantasy, play 4E.
You do realize that for some the combat of 4e resembles fantasy grindfest as opposed to fantasy vietnam or a high fantasy battle out of literaure and movies... there's a ton of threads about it on here as well as various other gaming forums. Just saying.
Also, what does the imbalance of casters have to do with this discussion?