Wow, you hit the nail on the head with this one, Lumps!
I like AW and PbtA just fine but I loooove normal RPGs and in this article you hit the head on exactly why.♥︎
Remember, I didn’t grow up on anything resembling normal RPGs as you describe them here. (When I finally found them, I described them and labeled them blorb.)
I didn’t have the Simula underpinnings a la classic B/X modules. I had movie script scenes “This happens, then this happens, then this happens”.
Since that kind of railroading proved unworkable within three seconds, I instead started working on improv skills but the underlying model was still scene based, story telling yarns, not “here are the objects and here are the rules for what happens when they collide” the way D&D is, when it’s ran blorbily, the way I finally found when a friend showed me B4 The Lost City one winter’s day. Probably better known as “home”.