This poll is a tricky one for me. The instruction "For whatever value of "pointless" you use" would seem to lead to everyone saying "true", but so far it's 4 true to 9 false, so obviously people aren't reading it the same way I am.
I said true because I don't think combats are supposed to be pointless. They're meant to be entertaining, dramatic (challenging) or just fun (power fantasy), random encounters help tell the players things about the world and what creatures inhabit the area, and they keep the game play fresh and less predictable for me.