Either it becomes too hectic
(....) I want to be able to determine the exact square
And I want to feel my blood pumping just a little while the action flows...
From the PHB - "The actions in a combat encounter happen almost
simultaneously in the game world, but ---"
In part yeah it is dependent on what you are after - a gridlocked emulation of the game itself OR a visualization of what the game is trying to show using a good translation of the game to a different media.
A turn based computer game is in some ways under using the computer... IMHO - Im a programmer by trade.. and slowing play unnaturally to match restrictions of another media "ie the limits of a face to face DM" computers have there own limits ... no need to induce a human one on them.
I wouldn't mind a turn based game just to hone well "strict game play" in a normal face to face style... but I wouldnt spend the money on it I might on a game where I could set up and design adventures and design characters and monsters (with as much cool visualization control as possible) and play in real time with multiple players with the computer doing the things it can do better than a dm there are few enough of these ignoring one of them is such a waste.
Sometimes the mechanics in D&D are short hand simplified and exacting control is oft given just for ease of play... for an ability where exacting control was "actually appropriate" ...duo targeting selecting an enemy then a spot on the ground is perfectly doable... there is nothing about the environment of the real time which prevents it (and no reason an exact grid has to be used instead of distances and relative positions -- see the bit about limiting a computer to what a human can do)
And abilities not coming off "exactly" where/when intended "everytime" is one of the areas where players learning control can contribute to the feel that YOU are in a combat not sitting behind a desk.. (because of this you will probably find abilities restricted to per encounter may be somewhat more frequent then absolutely once per encounter --- check out all the house rules where people are saying this is a positive thing.)
Shrug - I wonder if the VTT didn't show already because it wasn't impressive enough... and once they started working on making it impressive... they found themselves overlapping what would be done for a real time game so much...
