Without stats and all that it just wouldn't be the same. I feel stats based gameplay often allows the best of game combat to be realized.
The problem with stats in these types of games is that they used to be abstractions that represented things that couldn't be emulated in a boardgame scenario.
When you have a gun that does 90 damage, and another gun from the exact same type and model that does 300, on a tabletop situation that difference in value can be interpreted as the gun being of a lower quality and thus having less accuracy, jamming more often, etc. However, on a videogame scenario, when you're aiming that gun at someone's head and pulling the trigger, it doesn't make sense. Its still a shot to the head from the same kind of bullet at the same bullet speed, why one gun kills 3 times faster than the other?
Another even worse example is perks and level ups that increase damage with certain types of guns. Again, on a boardgame that can be interpreted as your character becoming more skilled with that weapon and thus being able to land shots more often and in more vital spots. But on a real-time action videogame, a shot to the leg with X gun will always be a shot to the leg, why are these exact shots suddenly causing 20% more damage?
Videogames that rely too much on stats also introduce another issue, the so called "RPG curse".
Say you meet an enemy many levels above you. You have to drag yourself in the mud and probably savescum a bit if you ever hope to defeating him, which doesn't exactly make for an enjoyable experience. On the other hand, if you level up too much and meet the same type of enemy again, you one-shot him. Not because of some special skill, weapon or ability, your numbers were simply higher than his, which also ain't very fun.
More often than not you need to be on a similar level to your enemies in order for the game to the appropriately challenging. Non-open world RPGs can control this better, but in an open world RPG with 'mobs' roaming around that issue becomes very noticeable.
To counter this, some games use level scaling (cyberpunk does this), bringing lower leveled enemies closer your level. The problem with this approach however is that you're essentially making levels redundant. If you and your enemy have 100 health and deal 25 damage each, then later in the game after leveling some you meet the same enemy type with both having 400 health and dealing 100 damage each, whats even the point of having levels?
Cyberpunk specifically tries to mitigate this by having lower level enemies scaling up to your level only to a certain point, then always staying a few levels behind. But if you're gonna do this, isn't it better to ditch level scaling and simply have a smaller disparage between levels?
One of the few RPGs i've seen getting levels and skills right was Deus Ex (though unfortunately the game has a its own stack of needles). Leveling up your gun skills of a certain type doesn't increase the damage they deal, just the accuracy (enough for you to feel the difference too), and guns of a same type will always do the same damage. And to make you more resistant you need to install the appropriate augmentations.
That was a long rant but that about sums up my issues with RPGs and Stats in videogames.