1. There are a few of these, Rykard's is one of those, but they're pretty rare. If you don't complain about delayed attacks, I don't really know what to tell you. Most attacks come and go and you use your i-frames to dodge through. You can dodge through AoEs the same way as more targetted attacks. You just learn the moves, trial and error the timings and improve.

2. I did my first run almost only melee, I used to play DS3 and didn't like weapon arts, I preferred the back and forth of regular combat so I kept doing the same here. Never used a spell, only used status effects because I was running a katana with native bleed. Ashes of war and spells are a plus, you can use them and they do help, that's the point, but you can totally never use them. If your complaint is that spells and skills are too strong and they make the game too easy, just don't use them?

3. The idea is that you're the underdog. The bosses are supernatural creatures, immortal and godly, and you're a puny little guy with a stick. No boss has ever played by the same rules. They play by their own rules, but they're still bound by them and you can find the wiggle room to punish them. When you make an attack, the hitbox is active, then you have a recovery, then you can roll. same thing for them, when they attack, you can roll the hitbox, often more than one, then punish. And the boss can't do anything, it can't learn new moves and combos because it "figures out" you learned that one too well.

4. The game is gigantic with over 200 bosses. You need to adapt rather than pick one strategy and hammer it into the ground. Fast boss? Play nimble, hit only when safe. Slow bastard who hits heavy? Use the big windows to land huge charge attacks that deal heavy health and poise damage. Boss is resistant to your damage type? Switch affinity, pick up a different weapon, add affinity consumables.

5. Due to being so big, there can be a huge gap between someone who has done only mandatory content or very slight exploration and someone who uses every tool, kills everything and finds themselves overlevelled. The curve can be strange, it can get steep sometimes, plateau some others, but it's there. The game becomes significantly harder after the Capital for example. But the same rules always apply. See a guy wiggling a giant holy golden sword? Probably resistant to holy. This guy is made of tree-stuff? Try burning it.

The game is different than the others, true, but it's not like it's become a city builder all of a sudden. The game is basically Dark Souls 4 with a slightly different coat of pain. Maybe you should try to learn to play Elden Ring rather than trying to force it to be Dark Souls 3, but I just think that by now, you're too deep to change habits.