No, I think it was smart. Because I don't think most players use feats as a way to give "flavor" to their characters, they use them as just one more dial to raise their character's effectiveness and power level in whatever they are doing (which is usually combat, as that is the backbone of the entire D&D game.) So making feats optional meant some DMs could choose to just not allow all these new combat abilities that increased character power, when it was pretty soon into the game's release that DMs and players discovered just how powerful D&D characters already were. PCs didn't need additional power in combat, they were already powerful enough. And thus not having to worry about trying to present challenges for a party with a character with Great Weapon Master, a character with Sharpshooter, three characters with Lucky, and a character with Polearm Master... was a boon for many DMs.
If the game wanted to remove all feats that increased combat effectiveness and only had feats like 'Actor' or 'Linguist' that built upon the other parts of the game besides combat... the social and exploration pillars... maybe then having feats non-optional would be okay. But the game isn't going to do that because that would be 'non-compatible' with the game as it is.