Women seem to generally just want a man who is willing to be vulnerable with them, and I genuinely believe that inconsequential shit like how tall he is or how much money he has in the bank are initially irrelavant, even with exceedingly attractive women (again, just judging this based on friends, acquaintances, etc).

No one, male or female, loves unconditionally and unchanged over time. There is a reason we talk about the 'honeymoon' period after all, same with the '7 year itch' and why divorces were so common once legalized.

I think most people want someone who loves them and they can love back, but people are complicated and relationship frictions develop especially once you get over the initial hormone burst of a new relationship.

Not only that, but people (again this all applies to men and women) love to believe the best of themselves, everyone is the 'hero' of their own story, so often they think they want something, but in reality they are attracted to something else. So the women you've talked to may well think that they just want a guy they can love, but generally that leaves out the important first part: that they find attractive. Plus you're also talking about an abstract concept, a fictional perfect guy, which runs into all sorts of issues when you get into translating that into reality and the real guy not living up to expectations.

It can be hard to see the reality of the 'other side of the hill' when you don't live it, but women are overall no better than men when it comes to dating, in some ways worse, some better, but we're all people and unfortunately a lot of people can suck (in the bad way).