I'm rather baffled how scaling is somehow inferior. Badly done scaling such that the combat becomes drawn out, duh, we don't want that.
But non-scaled combat is balanced around party levels, which is effectively the same thing but with more effort. Now there can indeed be more tailored abilities to some extent, but these would be more like minor touches than anything. Scaling assures there is, as Gyson noted, no wasted content in exchange for the possibility of a slightly higher cap in fight diversity (which I'd argue would take too much time to develop well enough to notice when considering its payoff).
I just think most of the no-scaling advocates' arguments just aren't true, ultimately. It does not strike me that level-scaling is at all related with "HP bloat" or "level bloat", whatever those might even be (bad balance if I had to guess, which is a different problem).
As Gyson also noted, difficulty levels in level-scaled games also function as a challenge. Fighting things above your level in non-scaled games makes some areas trivial. It's bad to have to go along a route to not make certain areas trivial, and if you don't balance around doing EVERY sidequest then people will make various fights along the way trivial in difficulty and reward little experience due to the overleveling of the party. That's not good either.
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TL;DR: It strikes me that the complaints in this thread about level scaling are actually about bad balance, not scaling. Non-scaled games can also have shitty balance, and there's a constant issue of who to balance the exp gain for (sidequester completionists, the in-between, or the main-questers). You can't help all three, so two get screwed somewhat.
