The flavor of the game depends on more than fluff. Disintegrate is by nature an all-or-nothing effect that leaves a cloud of dust behind. A disintegrate that pokes a hole is a sword. It isn't scary in the same way. A necromancer who's magic missiles look like skulls isn't scary. Your tactics for dealing with him are no different versus if he's draining your life force in a manner that debilitates you in some way that's different from losing hit points to MM. You can change the colors and textures of the same spell or the same combat maneuver, but if it doesn't affect mechanics, it doesn't affect the game much. Without enough mechanics to reflect the difference of abilities, the strategies aren't going to change much from combat to combat and it's going to get monotonous.

Simplifying and homogenizing may be helpful to a point but they got carried away in 4.0. WoW did it too during the time I was away. It became more accessible to a broader number of players, but for folks who had been around since old WoW, it felt like busy-work.