I think there is a disconnect that players willingly choose games where death being on the table is an important part of their core design and then don't follow along with that key design choice (D&D being the biggest and most obvious example). Now, D&Default is a huge contributor (esp. considering D&D's relative lethality), but RAW in 5e even a total party defeat kills on average less than half of characters. Between that and how healing magic works in that game, death is honestly pretty rare unless you actively got yourself into the situation or your GM really fucked up (and even then there are plenty of weird outs you can go for, this is a game where ghosts and Hell are objectively real).
My hottest take on the subject is that the lack of blindside deaths is a very specific literary constraint. It can be a good constraint, and in linear fiction I especially agree that it is reasonable, but to remove that uncertainty and danger from TTRPGs that include them RAW is to actively choose not to explore something the medium is uniquely suited for, and that choice needs to be justified. I am not saying that the justification needs to be deep, and can just be "I don't like it". But it does need to be there.
