Yes, felt that way for years.

Higher skill floors do create a commitment, and that can increase the depth of gameplay A LOT. Which is something only someone who has mastered a game will really understand. Which I suspect is not that many.

High skill floors definitely turn away a lot of people. For me it is often the issue of knowing what I want to do in real time and what I actually can. In SF5 for example, I had the reads on my opponents, but could not execute properly. Which is totally on me for not ingraining the systems before hitting MP.

Honestly I always played FPS though and still have mouse look ingrained. So I tend to stick to the FPS genre even though they are slightly more shallow and slower than fighters. I have often missed that there is no real back and forth reading in FPS. Outside of Chivalry's melee combat, most FPS focus on headshot instant kills or shoot first wins, which is really played out. Might as well jerk off while playing darts. It would be like having instant kill pokes and no blocks in a fighting game. That is novel in its own way, but where is the conversation?

I have quit gaming completely for the past few years cause there has not been a FPS release that I find interesting enough. I do have some hope for Project 1v1 though. Probably because there is still almost no info on it.