Let's Get Real - the DM's responsibility is balance

[Pex]

I disagree. 5e has "some assembly required" and "heavy DM involvement" all over the rules. And what counts as a fix for some people (ie the "social rules" I've seen bandied about here on these forums) would be much worse than the disease (whose existence is also a matter of contention and opinion) for many people (myself included). So there isn't a possible "fix that works for everyone". Which means that the system isn't broken here; we just disagree on what it should do. Which is totally fine. But we should be honest about the fact that we're discussing matters of taste and opinion, not objective truth.

The 5e base rules, by and large, do exactly what they promise. It's just that what they promise isn't what some people want. And then they conflate "not what I want" with "is bad".

Or it could really be "is bad" but a few people like it anyway.