5e doesn't reward moving all that much, unless you build for mobility. If you are engaged, mostly a melee character's turn is to roll to hit that target. If those rolls miss, the melee character's turn may as well have been skipped.I think that if your narrative is freezing then you are doing it wrong
Even if PCs miss a strike, there ought to be enough happening that the battlefield is dynamic, creatures flinch or duck, objectives get closer or further away, people stumble, clocks tick and characters have time to move or use a reaction or set up for the next turn
And position in 5e mostly matters in that it determines who you can hit.
For spells, I've found that spells that are save-or-nothing on a single target are often avoided precisely because of this problem. We can fix this with spells by adding a lesser effect on a miss (most have half damage, for example), and often multiple targets (which reduce the chance of a full-wiff to near zero).
Hence an attempt to add something to the game that gives melee PCs a similar "I changed the narrative, at least somewhat" when they take their action. While you can optimize around accuracy to avoid "your turn might have well have been skipped", but accuracy is already over-rewarded in 5e (which is why everyone quickly maxes their attack attribute, and why boring/vanilla +X weapons are massively strong).
I don't mind misses being possible, but if you have 2 attacks and 60% accuracy that means 1 in 6 turns you get to skip your turn, more often if you have a bit of bad luck.
Note I'm not proposing damage on a miss. I'm proposing stuff like "there are consequences to having someone with a sharp sword swinging it at you even if they don't connect", and that consequence is different than "someone with a sharp sword within 5 feet of you". D&D makes melee combat utterly boring - there is not even "giving ground defensively", which is pretty constantly true in every kind of melee combat in fiction and simulated melee combat and in non-lethal melee combat you can watch.
