I don't think is that bad, I'm pretty sure most people would have to tinker around for a while to make it work as well as you guys imply, at least in the big encounters.
I have written on stealth on length so I don't want to recount my experiences in detail once again. In short, I have less issue of the system being exploitable to the point of breaking the game (it is a major flaw of the system, but I can just not do it), but that stealth just doesn't work well for sneaking around normally/ambushing enemies.
The suggestions I supported in the past are as follows:
Add hearing circle so one can't Metal Gear stuff while being horrible in stealth and weaking heavy armor.
Make everyone in vacinity join combat when combat is initiated, no matter if they were spotted or not.
That, I think, should give us a functional system.
There is of course the problem of reigning in exploits (like attacking enemies from distance without triggering combat) but I haven't engaged with this system in many patches, I will allow others to chime in.
