Nothing about the argument I made is less strong than the one you just made, that much is certain. And yes, they are. Totally ridiculous. And yeah, I've heard all that tired rhetoric before.
No. I'll play whatever system I like, in whatever way(s) I want to play it, your unsolicited 'advice' notwithstanding.
By all means, enjoy yourself. I have nothing against people enjoying themselves.
One of my former groups had a very very low magic campaign going, which had stayed below 3rd level for more than a dozen sessions and which everyone involved with was very happy. You see, the campaign before this same group had played one of the most over the top superpowered campaigns I'd ever heard of. We had battlesystem games involving like 4000 counters that took two solid days of gaming (with little sleep to work out). Characters became veritable demi-gods, and in some cases sole rulers of whole planets. Eventually, the game fizzled because there was no way to go more over the top and still keep the game runnable. So, the group settled down to enjoy not just something different, but the sort of things that we'd come to enjoy more than the joy of exercising our wills over creation.
It takes all kinds, and sometimes all kinds are good. But on to the above described stage, a newcomer arrived without any of our experiences. This newcomer wanted to join, but when he showed up he became quite upset that he was not able to bring his chosen loot from his previous game which included a vorpal sword, a wand of wonder, gauntlets of ogre power, a rod of lordly might, and so forth (I kid you not). This into a group where noone had a magic item, and where the 1st edition equivalent of a masterwork weapon was considered an uber-cool and valuable find. Naturally, he was turned away as an incompatible fit, which sadly he would have been even in the previous campaign.
But I really hope he enjoyed himself. I hope he found somewhere to play. I hope he found the perfect group to continue playing in the style that suited him.
When I was dating my future wife, her younger brother discovered that I was a DM. This discovery apparantly immediately boosted his esteem for his sister. I discovered him an another lad enjoying a game one afternoon that I looked in on. It consisted in its essense of picking a random monster entry from the MMI, and then pitting the tricked out 30th level paladin which was the character of my future brother-in-laws friend against the monster. I was amused. My first campaign setting (to stretch the word) looked almost exactly like that, and was run in almost exactly the same way. However, it was clear that they were beginning to get bored when they decided that none of the monsters in MM being challenging enough (apparantly the unique ones having long since been slaughtered), that they'd try their hands at fighting the ones in the Deities in Demigods. At that point, I decided to intervien. "You won't be able to kill Morgan Le Fay, she's too tough." The skeptical lad took another look at her hit points and declared she was a pushover. "Fine, I'll play Morgana. Only, she's too much of a coward to face you. You'll have to go into her tower to get her." The paladin lasted about 20 rounds, IIRC, having been killed by the second monster in the dungeon. You see, the first thing that happened to the paladin is he fell into a pit trap, which would have been no threat to him at all, except that at the bottom was a water filled room and a giant octopus. The eye of the deep got him, as he'd been forced to strip off most of his gear to avoid drowning. "Good thing it was all just a dream.", I said.
The problem with claiming that its just totally ridiculous to have a fighter that can't see well is that well, the whole class system is totally ridiculous at a level of realism. Real world people don't fall into neat classes. If common sense must apply, then classes be damned as well. Indeed, pretty much most of the game needs to go away if common sense is to be our rule. You complain about not having Spot? I'd be a good deal more impressed if you complained about the lack of access to 'Use Rope' or 'Read Lips'. But I'd be even more impressed with your common sense if you bothered to complain about the fact that the fighter could rage like a barbarian or cast spells like a wizard. Afterall, common sense should tell you that there is no reason why the fighter couldn't learn to do either. There is no reason at all why a character shouldn't have spot, rage, cast spells, and swing a sword with the best of them. Common sense tells you that a person _could_ do this.
So I should point out does the game system. If the fighter wants ranks in spot, there is a very easy solution under the RAW. He should take a level in a class other than fighter. Which of course might mean that he has to wait a level for greater weapon focus or for that next bonus feat. But them is the breaks. You can in fact have a character with ranks in spot, rage, spellcasting ability, and so forth, you just can't be good at everything at once. Getting something for nothing; that would be totally ridiculous.
I'm quite sure that your games work just fine without class skills. I've played games of all sorts for 25+ years now. Heck, I'm happy to agree that the fighter needs some tweaking. I'm happy you enjoy your quasi-classless game, which does away with the class system to the extent of making what is for your game the weakest and least important class ability freely available to everyone. It doesn't impact the way you play at all, and probably elimenates a whole lot of tension and arguments at your table from players that would otherwise chaff at not being able to take spot as a fighter. I'm absolutely positive that it works and that its fun for everyone you play with.
