Yes, but especially at low levels, those effects are not long lasting and easily overcome, they usually have only minor impact on battles.
This. And you wouldn't expect every goblin you encounter to be carrying around a grenade, or special arrow, and/or be a caster. Especially with the sheer numbers in encounters. There's a few changes that up the importance of surfaces in the system, for example the changes to firebolt, but it's not just system but encounter design that emphasises surfaces much more where they already exist in the system.
