That's all very well and good but if you take out random battles what are you left with? A DVD film where you walk about a bit. There's better ways of doing it (abilities to remove encounters, auto-win against weaker enemies etc.), but it's still a fundamental part of most RPG's.

Personally I want to see an end to any kind of rating systems. It pisses me off that you need to be utterly flawless at a game from start to finish with only one save in order to get to the top in order to see all of the content in a game. If you really want to feel that uber then set yourself the challenge, not have it be an integral part of the game.