I see nothing wrong with min /maxing, and what do you do if you have played DnD since 1st Edition and pretty much know so many different combinations that work well together that to avoid it your intentionally sabotaging your character to avoid it? To me most of the capstone abilities are crap, so why play 20 lvls of a character to reach crap? There is exceptions like druids, fighters, and Barbarians. but lets be honest classes like paladins have a crap capstone , same with every class the only thing you get is 1 use x when you run out of it. If they wanted give you more when you run out make it unlimited usage, then its maybe worth waiting 20 lvls to get it. And games that you know are not going to get to lvl 20 ( say like BG3), why wouldn't you, your never getting to the capstone anyways. Min/maxing also makes stronger , more creative DMs. Think of it as a puzzle to be solved without acting like a child that changes the rules because they are loosing or lack the creativity to get past it. Don't see it as a negative, see it as an opportunity. There is a saying that says: " Too much specialization breeds in weakness." So don't go on how min /maxing makes a character too strong. When i make a character I first pick class, then race, then ability scores, and when i map out what i am going to do I focus on a theme, a single element to focus on to specialize on. It isn't always damage. and when it is, its specific area of damage, like a single cantrip or crit damage so on. I once made a yuan-ti character that was a fey wanderer ranger/ Shepard Druid as healing , support. some of the support was expendable reinforcements from summoned creatures and using unicorn aura when healing . He went yuan-ti because they get racial spell suggestion. Druids and rangers lack the spell magic circle to use with the planar binding trick, but they do get planar binding and the spells summon fey/ summon elemental, and suggestion lasts 8 hours. You can order the summons to fail the saving throw of suggestion before you remove concentration. you can even through the suggestion to order them to fail all saving throws and they can't move, speak or take actions til i say it can. This holds them in place long enough to cast planar binding.
My favorite parts of the game are making characters and watching them develop into what I mapped out for them. I rather have a difficult combat encounter to solve that isn't as straight forward as hack and slash then some mental or diplomatic puzzle to solve.
