I think some people here are forgetting that games are entertainment, not everyone considers bashing their head against the RNG and systems galore an entertainment.
But so is Monopoly, The Game of Life, Clue and so on. You do need a ruleset in any way. 5e provides one of the easiest rule sets out there. And it is also relatively robust and balanced. The problem starts when someone thinks "I did not hit, even tho I clicked on that person, that is SO unfair!!1". No one playing monopoly would *really* call a bad dice throw that sends you to jail "unfair" or would have problems understanding what happens. The main thing - imo - is that Larian really really is betting a lot on this game and they try to minimize any risks. And because they don't trust people to understand one of die easiest rulesets for a game out there, they made changes. And now they toppled the first domino and all the others need to fall too:
People need to hit more often -> AC down
Monsters die too quick -> HP up
PCs still use normal HP rules, so we need HP through Food
PCs are getting HP back too easy so we need to threaten them more often -> surfaces
Because killing small and many enemies in one hit is not possible all PCs get free disengage
Instead they could trust the rules already tested, but do a better job to explaining them in some way. To hide the real mechanics in a collapsed log while just showing statistics that mislead people is just a bad way of doing that. When someone sees that they need to hit a 13 with a D20 and their +3 mod they is is better than seeing a "50%". The first one you instantly understand: "oh, dang I rolled a 8 and a 2, thats just bad luck with dice", the other one is "fuck this game, it said 50%, and I missed 2 attacks!?! This is not 50%!!"
