I'm so mixed on it, because on the flipside I feel like Speech was too much an "I win the conversation" button in New Vegas. But that's probably got nothing to do with it not being chance-based, Speech has just always been the most important skill in Fallout.

I generally agree that it's better than chance-based checks, although I did like how Fallout 4 used it for trying to negotiate better prices.

You know what's weird, though? Fallout 4 did have dialog options which checked your SPECIAL stats, they're just not marked. There's an INT check during Liberty Reprimed where you can wow Proctor Ingram with your knowledge about actuators, and a LCK check in a random encounter with the curfew-enforcing Mr. Gutsy where you can just say "Will you comply?" over and over again and make the Mr. Gutsy explode. But for all I know, those could be the only two in the game! You'd have to pour through all the dialog in the Creation Kit to find out which ones check your stats.