hmm.. I think a lot of games do the same thing movies do today. They ignore all the easy stuff and only present the players with the hard things where they have a serious chance of failure. In a game run like that you begin to feel like your just an average guy pretending to be a hero. As boring as it can be for the DM I think a lot of games need to have more of the easy (what some DM's would call pointless) battles so the hero's can have those moments and feel badass. Because it just doesn't feel badass when every single action is 50/50, or 60/40 chance of success. Sometimes the bandits just need to be those unlucky idiots who attacked the wrong party.