Johny_X2 said:
What it often boils down to, however, is excessive inventory management. Which is, for most people at least, not fun.
Just going by this thread, "most people" don't see it that way at all. It's typically only in RPGs with other inventory management aspects, and is best used in games aiming for immersion in a survivalist experience (fallout games are A+ perfect examples of ones that do use inventory weight limits as a great restriction, both much more harsh than most RPGs but also much more fitting). Not always, though; sometimes they're used to trim your item list down - in pokemon, your ability to carry thousands of every item on the planet led to them having to split the bag into multiple pockets because a single "bag" would be an absolute mess if there was no limit. JRPGs often have no inventory management in their UI, so your "item list" gets bogged down with dozens/hundreds of outdated or useless shit unless you meticulously prune it to get rid of older versions or lower tiers of items when necessary. Weight limits are just one way to help alleviate that problem.
They shouldn't be overused, and they really shouldn't be used in any game where they aren't reinforcing the "theme" of the game. In survival horror, post-apoc scavenging, or any similar themed games, the amount of stuff you carry being limited is a perfect immersive restriction. In a game made by lazy developers, it can wreak havoc on a your game experience if it's constantly breaking the flow... but for the most part, that's filtered out fairly early in development. The only RPGs I can think of with those systems tend to have them for a reason - Baldur's Gate adhered vehemently to AD&D's rule system, including item weights, but the RPGs that took heavy inspiration from that game (kotor, DA and even mass effect) drop the system because it didn't fit their game's tone or style.
I'd argue that Elder Scrolls games aim for as immersive an experience as you can get in a fantasy world, and item weights are a part of that. Various mods for those games can increase (or decrease) the player's desired level of immersion, often letting you carry infinite items around or decreasing item weight to 0 for entire types. That's "cheesy" for anyone aiming for immersion, but if you just want to roam around, slay dragons, kill bandits and never worry about flogging all your shit to a vendor, it's a perfect solution. Typically, though, your weight limits are well made; even in the very restrictive Fallout games, your strength score and various perks increase the amount you can carry, and in TES games you typically don't fill up to the max unless you do several dungeons in a row without heading to town once (or carry a thousand dragon hipbones on you at all times, for whatever reason).
All in all, no, they're usually fine how they are. Excepting the occasional incompetent development team, they're usually only found in games where they belong. A big part of RPGs is the meticulous attention you pay to your character; skill point allocation, badass gear, decisions you make that influence the world around you and sometimes even your own appearance. After all that, looking after your items is nothing.