It’s a very anti-fun design decision. But then again, feats are an optional rule for some reason so it would be hard to have it a different way.

I don’t mind having to make “tough choices” in general, only when the obviously correct choice is boring and the suboptimal one is the cool fun one.

This perfectly sums it up. The problem is that increasing your scores needs to be pretty darn strong, strong enough to compete with a feat...but as you said, it's usually pretty boring. A couple of +1s certainly add up and make your character more powerful on average, but a feat that grants entirely new functionality just feels so much more impactful and fun.

I would have preferred them to entirely separate stat growth and feat selection, but the OneDnD method of just making most (all?) feats into "half feats" is acceptable as well.

I hate how rarely you get ASI’s and feats. Plus with the reliance on half feats, it’s so much work to figure out what to do. I think that all feats should change to half feats, lose the built in ASI, and then every even level you get a choice of a +1 in a stat of your choice or one of these ASI-less half feats.

I think feats are one of the coolest aspects of D&D character customization, so it's always a pain when it's stifled in favor of number-go-up. Depending on how high I plan to go, I give my players a feat every level or every other level. They end up with more than they know what to do with and end up taking RP feats, which are sorely underutilized because of the opportunity cost of obtaining them.

Yes, the PCs get more powerful, but that just means I rebalance enemies.

Something Something pf2e

I'm not a fan. But I need to stop playing D&D because, among other reasons, I find class+level too coarsely grained. I'd rather be able to spend xp directly on stuff like in cofd, fate, many other games I know less well.

That is exactly the reason I allways play songle Ability characters. I just dont have room for ASI. All the int increase on my wizard comes from half feats.

5e is weirdly stingy with ASIs and feats. It is kinda weird

i've personally (as DM) let players have both a feat and an ASI at the appropriate levels. Honestly doesn't hurt balance that much overall, just makes for slightly more powerful PCs.

I feel it provides a decent balance, making you choose between raw ability and specialization

although with a 19 you should definitely look into the half feats

That's the point. If you want everything right away just start with max level characters. Congratulations, no more leveling up means no more agonizing choices.

And no, having a more powerful character at level X doesn't change this. It just means that either your DM starts throwing comparably more powerful enemies at you or everything gets easier. In the first case you're accomplishing nothing because everybody involved is just adding some extra numbers to their rolls. And if you want everything to be easier you might as well just assume you always succeed on every check and get max damage on every attack. For that matter don't bother even pretending to be interested in dice, begin every combat by just describing how you massacre your foes. Then type up a description of it and you're writing a book instead of actually playing a game.

Most people have (including me), it's designed that way.

Unpopular opinion: This is a good thing. Having to make meaningful choices with a cost (even if it's just an opportunity cost) is a core part of what makes this an actual game.