Something like this wasn't even a problem 20 years ago.
No, it was. At the age of 15, playing D&D for a first time I already saw resting mechanic as being "off". Every person I recommended BG2 thereafter either rests too much, or doesn't rest enough as they failed to realise they can rest outside inns (and one person didn't wear armor as it "lowered" its defences :-P). Rest system simply isn't compatable with hand-made, static world. It's a resource management system with a completely unbalanced "tap" (thanks
Game Maker's Toolkit!), and unlike, lets say in game money, class resources are too important for the main gameplay loop to not be detrimental if unbalance happens. That's why, I imagine, resting is one of the first mechanics that RPG not based on the table-top system dropped. Newer games are just trying to address this issue - unsuccesfully in varying degrees.
