Ultimately, I've played D&D since the days where the DMG hadn't come out yet. I've never found such a boring, flavourless version than 4E. Everyone had at wills, per encounter, and per day powers and most of the modules boiled down to grinding through encounters as tactical puzzles. The group I played with had played through a whole gamut of different iterations of D&D, of more other games than I can count, and we waded through a full 20 levels in Eberron in 3.5. And 5E now too. We all felt that though 4E was easier for the GM, it was just not engaging like the other versions have been.
And that is surely an opinion, just the same as yours about the notion of a dissociated mechanic. And as that boils down to an opinion, it isn't something worth arguing about.