Surfaces are great, they really don’t do that much raw damage unless you have a run through a huge one...which seems relatively rare unless you are using barrels or something.
The point about melee being “useless” because fire bolt does 1d6 + 1d4 and then 1d4 from burning per round is also wrong. It’s great at like level one, but even then a fighter can do 2d6+3 in one hit. And at level 4, they can do 2d6+13 with great weapon master.
That’s hardy useless.