Why do you read into the design so cynically?
I find myself being cynical a lot, because there's a lot to be cynical about. The sort of nerd sub-culture that grew up among D&D fans had long had a strong, quiet undercurrent of what can only be called 'anti-martialism.' The game had deep flaws in the way it balanced casters and non-casters, but those flaws were embraced and enshrined. I can't guess at exactly why. I've heard speculation that we nerds identified with the high-INT magic-users, and identified the high-STR fighter with the 'jocks' we dispised, and therefor gravitated towards a D&D that relegated the fighter to worthless meat-shield after the lowest levels.
For whatever reason, D&D consistently failed to do justice to the most prevelent of heroic archetypes - the mighty warriors, brilliant generals, charismatic leaders-of-men, and accomplished knights. Even 4e really doesn't quite pull it off. The Fighter may be combat-relevent and have some of the peak-power of dailies so long enjoyed by casters, but no martial class touches any arcane class for sheer breadth and versatility of powers. And, Fighters are still engineered to fall into the 'big dumb' pigeon-hole, having great need of STR and none at all of INT or CHA. Warlords were a great addition, finally allowing the game to at least give a nod to more heroic archetypes, but, also, probably could have gone farther. The lack of a Martial Controller - all other 4e Sources (Arcane, Divine, Psioinic) covered all 4 roles - also illustrated the lingering disrespect for the source.
There's a good case to be made that Martial classes are simpler because their business is simpler; at its most straightforward, what they do is swing a sword.
Right, and wizards just mumble and wiggle their fingers. Seriously, what's easier, killing a dragon with a bolt of arbitrarily potent magical force from 100' away, or murdering it with a sharp bit of metal? There's nothing simple about what martial characters do. They take on a world overrun with supernatural threats with nothing but wits, skill, physical prowess, will and determination. And the things that the heroes of epic fantasy - fiction or myth/legend - do with those assets are increadible.
It's part of the 'anti-martialist' conciet to hold martial abilities to grim standards of realism, while letting 'magic' do virtually anything. Most heroes of myth and legend were what would be martial characters in D&D. And they were reputed to do increadible - impossible by modern understandings of biology and physics - things. Fantasy RPGs should not be in the business of debunking such archetypes, they should be in the business of modeling them.
This has nothing to do with any kind of assumptions about the nature of people who play Martial classes, and I don't think you should take it as a personal insult that Fighters don't have Daily powers anymore.
It's been clearly put forth many times that the justification for choiceless martial classes is that they are 'simpler,' - what's the point of that, if not for simpleton players who can't handle the more 'advanced' non-martial classes?
(I also think you overestimate the complexity of the Mage/Wizard; there's hardly much nuance to it; most of the time, a Mage's choice boils down to "which spell makes the biggest explosion and does the most damage, and where can I use it to hit the most enemies?"
While the Mage does retain the full choice, complexity, versatility, and peak power of the Wizard (especially since it can use any wizard power), the Mage powers in Essentials /are/ more forgiving of newbie mistakes. More of them target only enemies, for instance and/or don't use attack rolls. That makes them tactically simpler to employ, in play. The building of a Mage is still as complex as any pre-Essentials character, though.
I happen to be a big fan of Martial classes myself, just like you. I didn't have any problem with the AEDU structure for Fighters and Rogues and Warlords, but these days I really honestly believe that the way Essentials does the Martial power source makes a lot more sense.
A good way of understanding what someone means when they try to be diplomatic is to look at what they say, and ignore everything before the 'but.' It's easy to say you like the martial source, but if you're advocating having it stripped of choice and competativeness, you're not much of a supporter of it. And saying you have 'no problem' with one way of doing things, then going on to say another is better is, indeed, having a problem with the first.
By building everything Martial around At-Will powers, we don't have to strain anyone's credulity by trying to explain how a "realistic", physically-based power source has abilities that only work once per day; if you picked up a sword yourself, in real life, is there any way you could think of to swing it that you could do only once each day (barring injuring yourself with the thing)?
There are many things that a fantasy hero could do with a sword that I couldn't do /ever/ in a lifetime of trying. To say that preternatural feats of skill must be as repeatable as hacking at a side of beef with with a wallhanger ignores the whole point of playing an FRPG, rather than an historical simulation.
Martial powers are no more limitted by what's 'realistic' than are spells or divine miracles. To suggest otherwise is to abandon the heroic fantasy genre entirely.
In fact, if you do look at the myth and legend that inspired the genre, you rarely ever see wizards or spell-casting priests in the role of hero or protagonist. That's a much more modern development. Rather, they're in supporting or 'deus ex machina' roles. Similarly, the idea of wizards tossing effective spells in the heat of combat is pretty nearly a video-game trope. Traditionally, magic is a time-consuming undertaking with unpredictable results and often dire consequences for the one invoking it.
An At-Will/basic-attack-based system of powers for Martial characters makes sense. Yes, it's arguably less complex, but there's no reason to assume that's meant as any kind of insult to players, especially since Martial character now (unlike in previous editions) are perfectly capable and combat relevant all the way up to level 30.
4e martial characters were reasonably balanced, across the full 30 levels, and through the full range of play styles. Essentials martial classes are still on the same treadmill as everyone else, so retain some basic combat relevence right through level 30, it's true. However, as they lack the versatility and peak power of dailies and varied encounter powers, their actual contribution remains relatively flat and bland throughout not just their careers, but the full range of play styles. Other classes can be much more effective under some play styles than others, overshadowing the stolid E-martial classes when that happens.
FREX: Many DMs run their campaigns with fewer than the standard 4-5 encounters/day - days passing between encounters is not unusual. These campaigns require tougher encounters to challenge the party, the party responds by busting out dailies more readily to meet the challenge. Any daily-less classes inevitably under-contribute in such campaigns.
Some argue that the balance 4e achieved was heavy handed, that it 'made everyone into wizards' because it gave all classes equal numbers of daily powers. That's an excessively mechanistic view of the game. Yes, the common class structure used in 4e was key to balancing it. But, having the same numbers of powers at the same levels no more made all classes 'the same' than having all classes have hps or use saving throws. Each class chose from it's own unique list of powers and had it's own class features, making it decidedly unique. There's no mistaking a fighter's powers - all weapon-using, exclusively melee and close, virtually all untyped damage - with the wizard's - virtually all implement-using, predominantly range and area with some close, wildly varying damage types and effects.
