Unfortunately, current rpgs have the false goal of being foolproof. If you go to the Pillars of Eternity (first one) page there is, or at least was, a video there by the lead designer who described all the (horrible and misguided, IMO) things he and they did to remove from their game everything that makes Wizardry 8 great for example.
1) making character choices foolproof so even a new player blundering through the process will have a party capable of playing and finishing the game without extreme difficulty
2) removing all of the strategy by redefining attributes so every character needs all of them and so their effects are "linearized", i.e. so there is no major impact for raising attributes to a certain level. 2a) all characters needing all attributes is to destroy what he derogatorily calls, "min maxing", i.e. all of the strategic aspects of character creation and development which enable the characters and party to sink or swim depending upon the quality and wisdom of the choices. 2b) Strength for example is required by casters because for them it has been made to translate into the strength of their spells. 2c) The linearizing is to eliminate anything powerful from the character design process. A little bit more of an attribute means a little bit more only of whatever it does. Something like the Expert Skills in Wizardry 8 or the Novice-Expert-Master-Grandmaster exponential curve of abilities and spell effectiveness in the Might and Magic games is vigorously avoided. Overall these measures are directly intended to make the entire creation and development process for characters less meaningful and important, instead there is a focusing on just the tactics, exploration and story aspects and eliminating character creation and development as an important part of the game (in large degree).
Modern rpgs can be fun, but do not expect an in-depth and meaningful creation of the party that opens up the possibility of utter failure. The utter lack of this in current rpgs is directly, overtly and shamefully saying players cannot handle a meaningful creation and development of characters and parties that allows them to fail utterly.
I've never played Wizardry 8 so I can't speak to the comparison, but your perspective here is an interesting one that I don't entirely disagree with. I can't say I agree entirely either but asI said, I haven't played some of the games you've cited so I can't really givea fully informed opinion. But the stuff you say about character creation in particular catches my interest. It makes me thinkofadiscussion that I've seen brought up in regard to Pathfinder 2e and its comparison to D&D5e, which is that in Pathfinder you "can't win at character creation." Basically the idea that you can't just select the optimal feats and just walk through the game doing the same things, andthat the choices you make during each individual combat as a group will be what leads most to victory. It sounds like that's the direction crpgs as a whole have gone to some degree, though obviously they can have gone too far in some instances.
And other things you mention do feel to me like more a question of preference and design goals. Like,I can't see an inherent reason why exponential growth would be inherently better or more satisfying than more linear growth. However I can agree that all characters needing all attributes is more often than not a less than desireable approach. And also I'd be wary about assigning too much intention to the why of design changes like these. There are usually multiple reasons, sometimes technical as well as experience-based for such sweeping alterations.
