I don't mind damage on a miss on principle. I just think it should be saved for special things that can't be done all the time. It should be the consolation prize when you gamble some resources on something and whiff. "You didn't get your full 2d10+Str mod damage, so you get to do Str mod damage instead. Of course, now you can't do what you just did for another X amount of time."
I'd like GWF to have something different as its benefit. What that should be, though, I have no idea.
Virtually any number of replacements would work far better than this and scale up with level instead of down (quadratically).
A fighter starts with 1 attack, and ends up with 4 (or 5, with TWF and a polearm).
As he levels, his to-hit goes up from +4 or so, to +13, however, enemy ACs have stayed hittable (bounded accuracy ensures this).
So as he gains proficiency, the chance of him missing goes down with every attack, meaning the benefit he gains from missing goes down. But on top of that, he gains more attacks as he levels. That's
quadratically negative scaling benefit by level.
Fighting styles should build on these things to be coherent with the rest of the design rules:
a) hitting more often
b) hitting harder
c) doing something on a hit
d) avoiding getting hit
All the other fighting styles do this. GWF doesn't. GWF is a reward for failure. As you gain proficiency in fighting, you become
less proficient in GWF, as a total proportion of your output. This is in average DPR gains. You go from a 30-50% DPR benefit at level 1 to about 3-5% at level 20. That's a clear bug. It doesn't take someone with ten years experience or an incredible CV to recognize that, yet many people don't. Those are not the people who need convincing, it's Mike Mearls. He's the only one who can make D&D make sense again.
The best stand-ins for this have been mentioned many times:
1) Cleave on a crit or a kill
2) +2 to damage
3) Damage advantage (benefits higher W weapons more, which is great)
4) Brutal 2
Any of those things also build upon hitting, or hitting harder, or hitting more often. That's a mechanic which plays well with the other combat rules. One which is modulated by advantage or disadvantage, or buffs, or penalties. GWF is totally backwards in every possible way. It's bizarro world game design, straight out of the already-rejected-by-market-forces dustbin.