It reminds me of the difference between Oblivion and Morrowind, which I played in reverse order. Oblivion's design took on board the criticism of Morrowind and did pretty rigorous level scaling and as a result was pretty accessible other than the "difficult teens", but ultimately it felt pointless for the reasons you stated. Morrowind had fixed (ish) levels and playing it after Oblivion I found out why there were complaints after getting pwned by the bad guys in the cave outside Seyda Neen, the rats at Balmora and so on and sulked about it for months. The Right Way™ was somewhere in the middle which is what FCOM did to Oblivion, as I always end up prattling about as it really did change things for the better. I mean except for that time a witch somewhere around Lipsand Tarn chased me halfway across Cyrodiil before I managed to shake her off. Nutter.
But I mentioned Divinity 2 just now which I think did it right. Though I appreciated the rebalancing in DKS, the original release I think still holds the record for the number of times I've been pwned.