See this is where we get into the root of the matter.

"...If you argue that deathblow introduces too much randomness, than you have to admit that there the other side of the coin, such as when deathblow doesn't even FIRE for 4-6 rounds in a fight where one deathblow could win it. They are two sides of the coin.'

I agree. In a fight where deathblow refuses to fire at all, the RBW is essentially gimped. I dislike the mechanic on both sides of the coin. I'm not anti-rager ...I do play ragers occasionally. This doesn't refute my "it's a bad mechanic" argument either, it just reinforces it.

"On the same token, I don't see how gathering preps shows any sort of skill whatsoever other than the ability to memorize prep locations. How is the fact that if I know where all three of my ABS wands are (and can get them easily enough in certain lucky situations) I am inherently going to be "tougher" than someone who can't find them? Is that an indication of skill whatsoever?"

Nope. I don't like ABS or prep gathering either and I don't equate them with skill. A better example is someone recognizes your mainhand is cursed, your offhand isn't and you're a sword spec - so he offhands you and grabs the weapon...now theoretically he should kick your ass but boom boom, double deathblow punches and you die. Skill, to me, means you're doing something in the fight to try to tip it in your favor besides "gank someone down", "zap zap zap lash" or "pincer;!;!;!". You want an example of a great skill vs skill matchup - uncaballed warrior vs uncaballed assassin. That's a great, balanced fight and no one is winning that fight usually by just bash spamming in a vacuum.

"I can argue a billion other points where luck comes into play..."

Luck by itself usually doesn't lead to death. Assassinate can be countered, cleave/PWK can be countered, rot can be countered. All of those are arguably horrible mechanics, but at least they have common counters that are consistently effective that don't require you to waste your time.

"Sure I've won fights with deathblow I had no reason to win, but I've also lost fights that I would have won or survived 100% of the time if I could have used magic."

I'm not disagreeing with you. Like the problem is, you're trying to defend deathblow like if it was changed, it'd just get replaced with 'nothing at all'. I'd imagine if you tweaked deathblow it'd be along the lines of giving a mechanic that was equitable to both the villager and the enemy.