I'm pretty sure the popularity of the stealth archer play style is specifically because engaging with the projectile physics and OHKOing everything is more fun than actually playing the combat lol.

I also liked the game a lot. For the most part the radiant quests are easy enough to ignore, but the fact that you have to do a bunch of them to finish the theives guild really rubbed me the wrong way. I distinctly remember having to add and drop radiant quests over and over to ensure that the ones I was picking up were in the right counties - it had this annoying "you have to finish X jobs in Y city to unlock the main quest there" thing that was super frustrating.