I accept that no game can ever be perfect,
"Can't be perfect" doesn't mean "can't be better." Because, y'know, of it couldn't get better, wouldn't it, by definition, be perfect?
that at a certain point there's no value to complaining about something that simply isn't broken for most people.
Most people don't play D&D (heck, most of the 40 million people who have played D&D, ever, aren't playing it anymore), so the
ad populum you're suggesting actually says that the whole game is irredeemable garbage.
Good thing
ad populum is a fallacy, and things can be worthwhile even if unpopular, or have significant room for improvement, even if popular.
So the fighter has been lacking since the 70s? But it's still a problem?
Yes.
Of course, it's not like each edition hasn't tried something to improve the fighter's lot, it's just rarely been enough, and/or not been in the right areas, and/or been accompanied by other classes being even more wildly OP, and/or been quickly given out to everyone, and/or been promptly taken away again.
5e, as befits a compromise edition, has all the problems - and vestiges of most of the attempted solutions - of the fighter in past editions.
But, ultimately, even the editions that came closest to balancing the fighter and/or giving it a meaningful role in the party failed to give it much to do outside of combat, and that does take us back to '75, Greyhawk, and the Thief:
The Thief established that you couldn't be good at combat, and good at non-combat - in essence, what we'd today call the Exploration Pillar. The Thief established that, and the fighter has abided by it ever since (ironically, after getting some wilderness perks in 3e, the Barbarian has largely joined the fighter in 5e). But no other class has. Starting in 3e, the Thief, now rehabilitated as the Rogue, became more and more effective in combat, unitl, in 5e, it can prettymuch count on sneak attacking every round in every encounter, and is fully-contributing in combat, mainly through DPR. Similarly, casters, who once under-performed in combat and had to assiduously avoid melee have seen their combat abilities improve (starting with concentration and crossbows in 3e) until, in 5e, they have the same proficiency bonus to hit with weapons & cantrips as fighters, and are fully-contributing in combat, even melee in a pinch. And, all the classes have various non-combat things to do - not just skills (under BA proficient or not hardly matters until the highest levels), but skills enhanced with Expertise, spells, no-slot-cost rituals, and special abilities of all sorts.
But, the fighter is still stuck in the can't-be-good-both-in-and-out-of-combat paradigm of 1975.
so we wouldn't go to the moon and find their space station.
