It's indeed sad, and i am guilty of grinding at times. It can really remove the thrill of an awesome battle. I cherish certain memories E.G Fighting a boss in Persona 4 with the MC left on critical health, the boss would've finished me with a physical attack but I got a lucky counter attack and deflected it, won by the skin of my teeth.
Shin Megami Tensei games however are quite difficult. Nocturne is unforgiving as hell and i only really grinded for the final bosses. Digital Devil Saga 1, Despite being strong enough to beat the final boss and some optionals, I still run away half of the time from the last areas random encounters.
O.k. so some of these games require you to grind, but i have fond memories of being stuck. In a lot of games, any difficulty can be very easily overcome. Theres so much to balance, some games have an enjoyable challenge, but on others i just want to bypass that for the sake of the story.