Everything you say here was iterated times and times again, and I can just say: in a game where everyone knows about this, using an optional rest rule solves all those problems.
In groups where people just don't play that way, 5e runs very smooth and is quite balanced.
I have DMed for both groups of people and find 5e better balanced than any edition before that (except for maybe 4e).
"Use this optional rule and it isn't a problem anymore" is a classic Oberoni fallacy: just because the problem can be addressed, even with official optional things, doesn't mean the problem isn't there.
As those problems won't be noticed by the average beginner group, your estimation that 5e is successful despite its mechanics seems very flawed to me.
Considering the designers themselves got caught by surprise with stuff like this (the infamous "Ghoul Surprise"), I think it's much more likely than you give credit for.
Particularly if you have players who aren't making wise tactical decisions because they are still inexperienced. Doubly so if you actually do start the players at 1st level, where the game is so punishingly swingy, a single minor mistake can quickly lead to character death.
This is going to vary by taste and preference as a system take. PF2 is wound very very tightly and the opposite of 5E here. I dislike it very much because every combat is exactly as you think it would be. There is no swing, no unpredictability, its just same ol same ol. Some take comfort in an entirely reliable CR system as such, but as a GM and player, I would take 5E or PF1 any day over it. (You can sort of loosen the tightness a little with the Proficiency Without Level variant, but the base system remains.)
I legit do not understand this statement. At all.
1. If you are a player, how do you know what level the fight is? How do you determine how the combat "should" go? Doesn't the influence of dice, tactics, and terrain usage make a sufficient level of variation? How are you achieving such perfect levels of prediction with so little information?
2. If you are a DM, why are you using identical combats? Are you not providing rich opportunities (to both sides, to be clear) to do tricksy or dangerous things? Are you not using creatures with interesting actions or secondary effects so that even victory itself becomes a complicated affair? Are you including traps, terrain features, and other interact able/dynamic features to leverage (again, for both sides)? Are you making sure to throw some lower-level and highest-level combats at the party, or to have recurring opponents who don't gain levels and thus get weaker relative to the party as they grow?
This is why I legit do not understand these comments. People constantly grouse about "white room theory," but that's exactly what many of those same people use to denounce 4e- and PF2e-like effective and useful balance, while ignoring the techniques the books literally tell you to use in order to produce fun and engaging combats, completely stripping away anything except perfectly lockstep combats on flat, empty terrain. Of course if you do that the combats will be predictable and boring! That would be just as true in 5e under these conditions!
