I don't think anyone is advocating for making the rules go away, but I can see how that could use some clarification.
Like, if you are a fan of how movies tell stories, then you're a fan of the Kuleshov effect. It's a rule of the medium, a sudden cut to a different image that carries some meaning given its context. It's analogous here to a game mechanic, say the d20 roll for success in D&D. They are tools of their mediums used to tell a story.
When you watch a movie, you're not usually consciously aware of the Kuleshov effect. If you're a cinephile and you're aware of it and you're paying attention, you can probably notice how a filmmaker uses it. But for everyone else, it's just a tool of the medium for creating a certain emotion while watching a story. It's subsumed into the narrative.
Similarly, the d20 roll for success has certain traits and features that game design nerds like me can see and use in certain ways. Like, the nat 1/nat 20 function being a 5% occurrence, or how the range of numbers can create big swings in results, etc. But for a good chunk of D&D players, it's just the game mechanic you use. It's subsumed into the narrative of how our cool OC's go kill a dragon.
The idea isn't to get rid of the game mechanic. The d20 roll for success is (debatably) as important for the storytelling of D&D as the Kuleshov effect is for cinema. We use the mechanic. We use the medium. We like what it brings to our stories.
But doing a d20 roll for success also isn't the point. For instance, we have a rule that says we only roll the dice when success is uncertain. We can choose to put away that mechanic for the sake of the story we're telling. We let the narrative context decide success/failure, instead of the dice. The goal isn't to roll a d20 for success. The d20 roll for success serves the narrative we're telling.
In most of the movies you watch, the Kuleshov effect isn't the point. It's a tool you can use to tell your story, and it serves the narrative you tell. We don't want to watch movies without it. We don't want to get rid of it. But we don't need to point at it like that Leo meme, either.
Extending this to classes with defined combat roles we can maybe see why a lot of tables didn't like it. The point of the Fighter isn't to be a Defender. Fighters being good defenders is a tool you can use to tell your story of your fighter, if it serves your narrative. But being a Defender isn't the point. It's something that also can be put aside for the purposes of your story. A 5e fighter can be a good defender, but they don't have to be, and it's a better design for a D&D class, because it doesn't imagine that being a defender is actually the reason you're a fighter.
