I agree that it looks like bad roleplaying, I guess we're just drawing the line about why in different places. Making decisions like the one were talking about here, based on mechanics once removed from the fiction, is usually 'bad' if what you actually want is fictional engagement. In this case the players weren't really making decisions for their characters at all. If anything I'd say they were making decisions for their character sheets. There's enough ways that doesn't meet my general expectations about avatar engagement with the diagetic frame that I'm happy to at least joke about it not being roleplaying. Keep in mind, I did drop a caveat about my personal aesthetic distaste not equaling a value judgement.That to me sounds more like a description of bad (aka inconsistent) roleplaying rather than not roleplaying at all.
IMO. The player is roleplaying no matter what's informing the players decisions for their character. Speaking of informing decisions for a character - if you change it to a mechanical incentive so the player starts doing what you want is that really a decision informed by roleplaying? I would say it is - but would you?
There's no serious argument to be had here about the deeper nature of what a TTRPG is, or what it means to roleplay. We have other threads for that.