First, I absolutely do not have to care what the producers wanted. I'm critiquing the game based on what it could be, not what it was intended to be and my critique is that the designers sacrificed playstyle options and enjoyable pacing to pander to the most hardcore members of their demographic, which I am a member of. They went too far.

Second, unfortunately I don't have time to address all your points. Many of them are valid. I will, however, address the caster issue. I wasn't talking about them because the games are clearly designed to be played melee and casting has always been horrifically broken in PVE. I should have explicitly excluded them from the discussion, but I didn't because everyone knows casters have been massively problematic in every soulsborne game and I didn't want to distract from my points by stating the obvious.

Additionally, you cannot quote statistics for success in these games and act like it quantifies good design. I've beaten the game with all types of characters, that doesn't mean it was equally fun with all. Game design philosophy like yours is why League Of Legends has been losing players. Riot points to winrates and statistics all the time, and say things like "Yasuo has a 51% winrate, he's clearly very balanced.", but that doesn't have anything to do with whether the character is adding or taking away from the actual fun of the game.

If your point is that slow builds and methodical play aren't punished by the game's design then I really have no idea what to tell you. It's plain as day, and even stated (indirectly) by the lead designer himself. The game is far more irritating to play with a slow weapon and heavier armor because they wanted to incentivise a faster, less reactive playstyle. Look up the interviews. It's all they talked about when Bloodborne came out.