ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]

The 3.x tarrasque became a joke, but that was a result of the extensive options combined with people’s system understanding - sure a single wizard could kill it, but that still needed to be played by someone who understood the system. It was a system that gave unlimited options, so if you worked out how to combine enough of them you could break the system wide open, and the tarrasque was a great yardstick for that.

Then you come to 5e’s tarrasque and it’s so badly designed that it’s obvious from a glance that a level 1 character with flight can just hover above it and plink it down with a bow. I’ve seen 3.5’s brought up in comparison to that, but not as an example of difficult fights in a vacuum.

My players like to save their worst rolls for perception checks to find secret doors. Even when they specifically know there’s a secret door and just need to work out how to open it, out comes a parade of 1s and 2s.

Pf2e is very well made in that optimisation generally adds up to a few points of damage difference in a white room, while good tactics on the battlefield can make for literally hundreds of points of damage difference. It really frees you up to take feats because you think they’ll be interesting or add to your character, instead of being pigeonholed by optimal choices.

5e’s bounded accuracy is why you “can’t” make a mechanically strong character, not the lack of choices. The rolls matter that much more than your bonuses that a character who is mechanically strong on paper can be outdone by a mechanically weak character that rolls slightly better.
Try PF2 and you’ll see how mandatory balance and simplicity of play can be combined with lots of choices.