Oh, we're b*tching about lock-on mechanics? My only complaint is when the lock-on dictates my character's physical positioning. I've had a few instances where my being locked-on to an enemy who's precariously close to a ledge and goes over, and my locked-on status caused me to swing around to keep the enemy screen-centered, but also threw me over the ledge. I've died a lot in Souls games, but those kinds of deaths are the most frustrating because it's not a mistake I made [using the game's mechanics,] rather a fault of a fundamental system within the game that I can't control outside of toggling it on or off, and in some instances, the reflexes required to acknowledge and effectively execute a change is nigh unreasonable. I'd say it's not a fault of being locked-on, but a fault of the system allowing the lock-on to change the position of my character and not just the camera.
This kinda ties back into my point as to why a lock-on function that performs perfectly or near it in pure action or hack n slash games wouldn’t really fit in Souls framework. Environmental hazards can be as much of an enemy as normal enemies. All four shoulder buttons are dedicated to primary attack/defensive commands, because sometimes during enemy encounters the player needs to use the right stick to move the camera around during spots where the environment is simultaneously a hazard.
The face buttons are for secondary commands like flask use, environmental interaction, dodge/roll, and jumping. None of those should ever require camera use on right stick so they work best there. Maybe strong attacks could be made with an L1 hold so R2 could be freed up for a soft lock or something, but then the player shouldn’t have to hold anything else to perform another primary attack either, or while locking on. Or maybe during combat a face button like triangle could be freed up, but that would be context-sensitive which would mean Souls environments and enemies would need to be separated into more defined zones like action games.
Maybe that’s partly why a more intuitive system hasn’t been implemented yet. There’s too many variables to ever feel intuitive on current gamepad layouts without some sort of compromise. In this case it’s basically a stick click/nudge.