Yeah, I agree entirely with the 'pointless' arguments. It just always felt like a losing proposition to get into battles, you're ending up with less resources overall. I didn't even mind the idea of the sticker-based battle system, but there was nothing incentivizing it.
The boss battles are what really sealed the deal - you think you'd save up money or stickers for the ultra-powerful stickers to use on the bosses, but then the whole "you must use the pre-determined thing sticker on their weakpoint" design negated that. And regular battles just aren't that hard that you really need those ultra-powerful stickers - it's usually groups of common enemies, so why will you use your "Mega Giant Super Hammer" sticker on one Koopa? It just didn't make sense.
Bowser was even worse, amazingly - you'd go into the fight, and only halfway through the fight would it signal you need the Scissor sticker. So everything up to that point was useless, you need to quit, and go find that sticker. That's just bad game design.
Hopefully Colour Splash has learned, but it is kind of worrying.