Level Grinding Has Nothing To Do With Skill

I have heard more than a few times that RPGs don't require the same level of skill as other games do to complete. I disagree with this, the difficulty of a traditional RPG is hidden in the long term planning. Taking a team through a quest for 50-80 hours, micro managing items and stats and planning ahead can be hard, and the good role playing games make you prove your long term planning ability with an endgame that tests it. However, grinding levels has absolutely nothing to do with skill or ability, and losing a boss fight because I'm under leveled makes me angry. Walking around a dungeon, intentionally fighting the same group of mobs over and over just to increase my stats a little is mind numbing, and absolutely a relic of gaming past.

I'm playing through FF3 right now, and even in the early stages of the game, the grinding required of you is unreasonable. Up top here is a picture of the boss Salamander. He is brutal. Salamander attacks twice a turn and has a fire breath attack that has a dmg range of 175-250 WHICH HE CAN CAST TWICE A TURN. His speed is higher than yours can ever be at this point in the game, so he will go first every round, and his HP is around 4500, meaning even with 4 Blizzaras cast per round (his weakness) you still have to survive 5 turns with this fucking guy. I've read the message boards, I've dug through the internet and every single gamer who has completed FF3 says the same thing, you will spend half of your play time grinding levels. 

I did finally beat the Salamander boss after grinding in the Molten Cave for 2 hours and resetting the game every time he cast fire breath twice in one turn. The game immediately follows Salamander with this guy, Hein. He also attacks twice per turn, and can switch weaknesses on the fly. He can do this mid turn, unlike you, who has pre-selected every move. He will kill a player each round, and with no life spells and unpurchasable Phoenix Downs (you can only find them in dungeons and shit), you will need to beat him before your supply runs out. According to the inter webs, I'm in for another 2-3 hours of random battle after random battle if I hope to beat this guy.

Obnoxious level grinding is a thing of the past, and while I expect it from early FFs, there is no place for it in modern gaming. One of the reasons we all embraced the western RPG movement was because it did away with all of those silly "rules" that JRPGs forced on us. Why does the protagonist have to be a teenager? Why are there always so many dragons in outer space? How come I actually have to dedicate time to grinding levels just because your boss fight difficulty doesn't increase at a similar rate as my party?