Jeff Rients is a pretty big proponent of what me might call "fragile pcs." Jeff also happens to be my dungeon master. I posted the following as a comment in one of his recent blog posts:
"As a player in Jeff's game, whose Dwarf, Fred, died (melted on a magic throne, fell down two consecutive pit traps) and was resurrected twice, while also surviving two fireballs from the same space wizard (on different occasions), a critical hit from a vampire, several poisonings, and all sorts of other threats to his general well-being, I love the edge of your seat gaming that having a more fragile pc brings.
If you know you're going to survive, what's the point? Who cares if Fred fell the giant, Joe Mama, with a single sling stone if we were just going to win anyway? Who cares if Fred used his bare hands to rip apart the space wizard's armor so that one of his party members could pierce his heart with a magic sword if we were just going to win anyway? Who cares if Fred and his friends infiltrated the vampires' lair and engaged in a mass revenge slaying of the entire coven if there was no way we were going to lose? Who cares if we came up with the perfect plan to teleport the dragon away from his hoard if we were going to succeed regardless of whatever actions we took? Who cares if Fred used his Ring of Climbing to barely escape sure death at the hands of two iron golems if there was no way he was going to die in the first place?
I got Fred up to 7th level (and then down to 5th level because of the m-f'in vampire - but he got his in the end! - and then back up to 6th level) while a number of his party didn't make it. Fred got resurrected a couple times because he was generous to the church and made good friends. His henchmen pulled him out of the fire a number of times because he was loyal to them and treated them well, both monetarily and otherwise. He was a calculating gambler, who never took unnecessary risks and became wealthy, powerful, and respected, despite starting life with 5 hit points and no ability score over 11.
I got to see Fred go from a low level coward to an action hero with an outrageous mustache and his own catch phrase. "I'm the guy who's going to kill you." No one ever heard that phrase and lived!!! Admittedly it wasn't very clever, but then Fred only had a 7 Int. Words weren't really his thing.
I don't know how people who play D&D with the safety net under them enjoy it. Either they're able to act like it's not there or they derive their enjoyment of the game from a completely different place than I do. And, hey, that's perfectly o.k. Play however you want.