True. But what a scope and what an effort, to play and review 100's of PC and mainframe RPG's over a span of many many years, and thus to create a more or less comprehensive history of these games from very obscure beginnings to the early 1990's (until now)! Perhaps someone else fills the console gap :-).

Yes, there are other ways, too.
In my mind there is too much focus on fighting - I would replace it by the more general term "removing or overcoming obstacles", which may be opponents, but also other obstacles, physical ones, lack of information, etc. Not in the way of Adventure Games with their (more or less logical) "logic puzzles". Just like a monster, an "obstacle" may have stats which are compared with related player character stats (this is used in CRPG's when opening doors or chests, for example). In this context, I find quest markers (as an example) not only upsetting, but also a lost opportunity to make games more interesting and immersive. I do understand that it's a lot easier (for designers and developers) to build in quest markers than hints or other ways to help a player find a certain place, NPC or object.
And most importantly, the focus should be more on the "what" and "why", and not on the "how". I think most CRPGs are primarily about winning fights, defeating opponents, culminating in occasional "boss fights", everything else is accessory, cosmetics. Looks like most players want it this way.
And it looks like I'm getting too far away from the topic of this thread ... :-)

Sure, I'll resurrect a 5 years old post, thanks for asking me to. (Ok, it's the only topic on this subject I could find).

Here are the reasons for me:

1) Back in Daggerfall's day, I didn't know what level scaling was or that this game had it. Which is probably because:

2) Level scaling only seems to matter in dungeons (as others said). I don't mind a random dungeon being scaled appropriately to your level, in fact it seems kind of necessary if the dungeon wasn't premade to begin with. If DF had enemies roaming around on the world map, and you ended up with wolves or rats that are just as hard to kill at level 20 as they are at level 1, I would have noticed and not liked it.

3) I think level scaling in DF works differently, but someone can correct me if I'm wrong. In DF, the individual enemies don't scale (rats don't become level 50 rats), but instead the game just picks harder monsters and puts them in a dungeon with you. My first time playing Oblivion, I accidentally went into a main quest dungeon immediately after the starting dungeon, and killed some lich and obtained some kind of poowerful artifact orb thing (IIRC). I was like level 3 or something? It felt really weird to kill that lich. I looked it up online and found out I had an end game item already for some end game quest. My point is that it feels weird for an end game boss to be scaled down to level 3. It should have a floor, like level 20 or something. And low level enemies should have a ceiling. These kind of scaling floors and ceilings either did't exist in Oblivion or they're too wide of a range.

Actually, enemy scaling, in both Arena and Daggerfall, works differently depending on whether the enemy is a humanoid or a monster. (Note that, at least in Arena, creatures like Goblins and Orcs are treated as monsters for this purpose.)
* Humanoids get more powerful with your level. You will still, for example, fight Nightblades whether your level is low or high, but those Nightblades will be more powerful and more dangerous if your level is higher.
* Monsters, on the other hand, work as you describe; at higher levels, you fight stronger monsters, but the stats of any given monster type don't change.

By the way, Morrowind actually does have level scaling for monsters (not humanoids) that works the way it does in Arena/Daggerfall; you'll only encounter a Golden Saint, for example, if your level is high enough or if was placed there by the developers (and therefore is a one-time non-random encounter).

Yes, as I recall, level scaling didn't bother me in Morrowind either. The thing that irked me in Morrowind (I know this is lame) was when I saw that an NPC shop owner could not open their own shop counter to get to me when I shot them with an arrow! I expected this kind of thing in Daggerfall AI, but I expected better from the sequel. That and also the way being a wanted criminal was global in Morrowind. Commit a crime and immediately every guard in the world is against you. Even Daggerfall handled that better (wanted per location). Oh yes, and finally how enemies could attack you in the dark without any torch with no problems. I don't think they ever fixed that in any game, but mods eventually did. I think Skyrim has mods that give torches or lanterns to NPCs at night.