Not all games genres experience to the same extent, however, the recent trend in FPS games has been for weapon unlocks and also skills/perks to give advantages to people who play a lot or have a certain style of play.
Yes and no, while unlocks and perks do usually provide benefits, you can do perfectly well without them if you actually know how to play, I am regularly at or near the top of scoreboard in Bad Company 2 using the 3rd weakest medic machine gun and no magnum ammo with a better k/d than most of the other players. I am good at BC2, but I wouldn't consider myself awesome at it or anything, I simply know how to play. Hell I could improve my K/D ratio easily by using the M60 with magnum ammo (or even without it) but I would rather be USEFUL to my team and take the extra healing bonuses (1.5 times increase in healing speed and extra range). A lot of the unlockable weapons aren't necessarily better statistically than the starter weapon (for engineers the starter gun does the most damage).
Likewise, even since the AWP days, people have complained about the over-skilled or over-powered in FPS and what they label 'cheese' (i.e. nube tubes, martyr, last stand, etc. etc.) and what is not.
Some of them are poor-coding on the developer's part, others are (also) abuse by players. The AWP is a 1-hit-1-kill weapon, but not everyone uses it all the time. Some guns simply ARE going to kill you in one hit, like a .50 caliber rifle is simply going to tear you apart (though in BC2 after X amount of distance it won't kill in 1 body shot). Noob tubes are quite cheap, they have their perfectly fine uses but the problem is they are TOO easy to use and to rack up a lot of kills with. They were nerfed a bit in BC2 in the last patch, thankfully. Now you have to be more accurate with them. I don't use them much, mostly for their intended use of blasting a hole in a building, otherwise its like the idiot tards who run around with a carl gustav ANTI TANK WEAPON and just shoot it at any enemy they see (which isn't always the best tactic, I've often started shooting at some idiot who then switches to his gustav but is dead before he can fire it).
Martyrdom was just plain retardedly stupid, especialyl in hardcore mode. It really was cheap.
Last stand is an example of where people are complaining because they made a mistake, I rarely got killed by someone in last stand because I made the effort to pump the extra bullet into them before they could draw their pistol. Its not hard.
The example you give in Red Orchestra, and other mods like Forgotten Hope for Battlefield 1942 go for ultra-realistic simulation and tactics as opposed to your typical FPS games most popular today. But they cater to their own brand of elitism as well - that being map knowledge (location, location, location), sneak well, camp well, and see your enemy before he sees you, and ultimately how well you can shoot with iron sights as opposed to the old standby 'spray and pray'.
ultra-realistic
Map knowledge applies to any game and is simply tactical, it has little to do with full on power gaming. Iron sites are used in most decent shooters and are an added benefit to aiming, as well as being realistic. "pray and spray" is usually a desperate tactic to use that will usually fail.
Neither that mod nor game are ultra-realistic. They are more realistic, but are not ARMA, Op Flash or IL-2.
Except there are such numbers of powergamers on the net, thats never the case. No one wins all the time. You can however, be one of the absolute best, and power gaming at least gives one that opportunity to compete somewhat at that level. I guess bottom line its about desire to be competitive or casual, and it truly mirrors real life. If you want to be a pro golfer on the PGA tour then you have to grind hours and hours of life away in order to have that level of skill. Same with online games. But that doesnt mean you shouldnt be able to enjoy a casual round of golf with your friends. You absolutely should. And this is what I am talking about in WoW. You can now form that 'golf scramble' group to head out on the links and play with no real waiting involved and absolutely no need to compete with the 'power gamers' out there. Its actually a pretty nice system.
When did I say there weren't power gamers? FPS games are difficult if not impossible to do full-on power gaming, bits and pieces maybe. Skill should and (if the game has any semblance of balance) will beat power gaming as or more often than not.
Obviously pro-gamers know all the tips n tricks and workings and power game, I don't play in any "pro" stuff. While you don't need to compete with the power gamers in WoW or any mmo, you'd better hope you have a good group of like-minded friends to play with or find a crappy guild or random groups to join. If you don't have good gear for the raid/instance/whatever people are going to strongly dislike you if you cause them to fail. But whatever, I don't really care about mmos anyways.
