I understand what you are saying. I do. but what I would offer in return is that there is a place for low input versus high input styles of combat.
One style assumes that you are the in fact master of the combat and you will be implementing a very specific series of things at a very specific series of timings . The other assumes that the character is in fact the master combat, and the player then gets to choose a tactical view of who ( and what, for environmental triggers) to engage, leaving the specific method of engagement to the actual character itself.
I understand why one would look down on the latter, but as I get older, I can appreciate the tactical approach to the combat -obviously it's flashy, and you can include a lot of different animations to make it look great, and one can easily write it off as a button mashing extravaganza. however, to take Batman in particular, when one turns off the prompts and counterattack tells that the game includes by default-it becomes a lot more difficult, and a different sort of game, where you actually need to keep an eye on the entire melee field, and make decisions in a more rhythmic fashion. This is not a waste of time. it's just a different approach. It's a higher level approach. I do no mean it takes more skill. but it simply asks a different set of decisions from the player.
