I think this is often just a failure of imagination. I played a Fighter with Come and Get It throughout 4e. I used it against beasts, swordwraiths, and other enemies I couldn't converse with, and each time I had an apposite explanation.
But that's really the issue. For some of us, we could clearly visualize what the power was doing, and didn't need the extra bits. Others really wanted to know "hey, how does this power even work??!!111" and there was...very little. Why did it work without all the things Oofta mentioned that would definitely have been in the ability in almost every other edition? Why does it work on mindless undead and avatars of dead gods? Because it says so, and that's the same with just about every other thing in 4e.
Now, there's something to be said about abilities that
don't have a million caveats about what they can be used against. Take for example 3e's Sneak attack. It's "precision-based damage" so it can't be multiplied on a crit. Doesn't work against undead or constructs or oozes (I think?) or elementals, who in strict defiance of their art and minis "have no discernible back or front", or even sometimes against creatures who had too many eyes (all-around vision) or were inexplicably, Rogues 5 levels higher than you were. Can't be part of a "volley" attack. Needed clarifications on whether or not it worked with some spells (something I had DM's reject outright as a matter of course). In fact it was the areas where it
wasn't limited that got the most scrutiny, like DM's who insisted it was "once per turn" and "you can't Sneak Attack with a greatsword"!
Now contrast and compare Sneak Attack in 5e. Yes, it can only be used once a turn. No, you can't use it with a Greatsword. But when you meet it's requirements (have advantage or don't have disadvantage when attacking someone adjacent to an ally who isn't incapacitated) it works. You don't have to ask if you can crit with it. Or if it works on random strange creature #852. It does.
And there's a lot less argument about it. People (mostly) accept that this is the Rogue's method of dealing damage and their means of contributing in a fight. But removing all the "grey areas" from the rules is going to invite these questions- we see it actually even in 5e now, where the designers don't explicitly define things like what "teleport" means or whether or not a hemisphere has a floor, and multiple page thread debates arise over it. And even if some developer weighs in via a tweet (or X or whatever you call it now), a lot of people still disagree, lol.
4e told us we don't have to quibble about the details. But it turned out, for a lot of people, the fun was in the details. They like knowing things like "you can't charm a zombie" (even though, inexplicably, you can in 5e). That fireballs are somewhat inexact, being spheres in a world of cubes. And what mystical words one needs to mumble to cast magic missile. Oh and being able to rely on things like "magic missile always hits" even if it turns out to be better that it doesn't, lol.