"If I wanted to drive with my foot and blindfolded, I should be able to do so, because that’s my choice".
That is irrelevant to the point, and the point is this: stats and skills represent your abilities and limitations in a role-playing game. They are the way of a system telling you “Hey, you can do this, but if you choose this build, you are fucked, because the laws of this world are such and such”. So, while you should be able to role-play as muscled wizard, it is idiotic to pretend that this can be a viable build. The logical consequence of this bad design choice is that you need to bend the character system to maintain this whim. How do you do it? You invent a gamey stat that can represent both the player's physical and spiritual strength, which doesn’t make any sense at all. That’s the price you have to pay in order to make any build viable. You make a character building that is bland and doesn’t impose any meaningful restrictions. In PoE you can disarm traps as a thief, throw spells like a wizard, use an armor like a warrior, jump like an athlete, etc. It’s popamole game design where you can role-play as anything, because the game world is designed around your ego and whims. The character building is mostly cosmetic.
