I think a lot of this is subjective. The ideal you're trying to serve in an RPG is making the player identify as deeply as possible with their character. For some people, having complete, instant physical control and a sense of place and danger is essential to that identification. For others it's a slower process of envisioning exactly what they want to do in detail in each situation.

My first RPG was the original pokemon red/blue and as a kid I was utterly baffled by the menu based combat. At first I thought the menus were bushes that you were hiding behind to catch the pokemon. The idea that the battle system was an abstraction over what a pokemon battle would actually be like was completely foreign to me. I got over it within the first hour but I remember being disappointed that you weren't actually slinging pokeballs and such.