I mean it's more the fact that you have to pick ASI or feats. Fine if it's one of the 'essential' feats like GWM. But if you want a feat for flavour you have to cripple yourself to pick it.
Bull.
It depends on 1) the character you're playing, 2) HOW you're playing that character.
I have a barbarian character who, for her 2nd feat, I took Linguist. She's now fluent in fantasy pseudo-Egyptian/Arabic - wich was of great help to both her personally & to the party during that campaign/adventure. Far more so than adding another + to hit/damage could ever be.
So why'd I choose Linguist vs an ASI?
Because this is 5e & I wasn't having any real issues hitting targets. And I was happy with her damage output, AC (even while raging), HP totals, Saves, etc. Another +1 to any of these wouldn't appreciably matter. Certainly wouldn't be interesting either.
So why Linguist vs some other feat? Specifically some combat feat?
Because of how play was developing. One of this characters ideals/bonds/whatever is that she's a survivor. The character was adapting to the environment/society she found herself forced into.
(we were playing Desert of Desolation - to kick things off the PCs are exiled into the desert. It's either go forth into the DoD to track down raiders or be executed....)
Hitting things harder? Hitting things more? Doing tricky things in combat? None of that was what was needed. And she wasn't training/studying/practicing any of those things beyond what general leveling up would represent.
She was however, since about the 3rd session+, always trying to decipher the ancient scripts/runes/etc the party kept finding & trying learn the native tongue of the region.
So I didn't take an 8th lv ASI. Or a combat feat. And as a result my barbarian doesn't hit things
quite as often or
quite as hard as the next players. Nor does she do tricky things during a fight.
Instead? She's fluent in fantasy pseudo-Egyptian/Arabic.
Has that crippled her? Nope. Not at all. It has made her a more interesting
character than alot of other players barbarians who just hit things more/harder.
If you want to simulate starting with just one level of fighter as something like a sorcerer, you have to pick 5 feats! Fighting initiate, weapon master, lightly armoured, moderately armoured, heavily armoured. That's all your ability scores lvl 1-19, and you can't take a single ASI for your entire progression.
1st, it's not quite accurate that you get no ASI. You do. +1 Str/Dex several times along that chain. You can (should) plan around that.
2nd, unless being human is an important aspect of this hypothetical character, you could probably skip a few steps by making a Dwarf or an Elf, or something.
3rd? This seems like a
really convoluted method to express this concept. But if that is the route you deem best represents the character you're imagining? Go for it.