Why do almost all editions of D&D fall apart around 10th level

[2D8HP]

Ultimately, because the powers and abilities of both the PCs and their foes at high level outstrip the conventions of the primary genres D&D takes inspiration from: sword & sorcery and its prettier cousin, high fantasy. Low-level play is practically a chapter out of a Fritz Lieber book, while high-level play gives the party far more powers, and more variety of powers (including setting-destabilizing ones), than are found in most high fantasy books (even ones where magic is commonplace, like Tamora Pierce novels).
I think part of this comes from an early design standpoint to avoid placing thematic or cultural restrictions on the base classes (mage, fighter, and to a lesser extent cleric). Even the original name of the mage class, "magic-user," speaks to this design intent. Consequently, things from every fantasy book, every myth, end up being lumped into the abilities of few enough classes that the party can fill all the roles simultaneously.

From a different thread I learned that some prefer high level "anima" style play rather than low level traditional Swords and Sorcery inspired stories.

The point ultimately being that, no, not only DBZ is above 5th edition character representation when it comes to heroes in Eastern fiction. Eastern Fantasy is even more ludicrous, as the protagonists in Eastern mythology tend to fall hard on the demigod/god side of the equation.

Blue Lantern's post right below yours and Zman's right above yours holds my onerous with the community. It's 2016 and we're still dealing with Stormwind and "Weeaboo Fightin Magick".

The community, as I've been exposed to it, gives me a rub that we should be happy playing SoIF characters and we need to go back to watching our Animooz if we want to play as Hercules or Samson or Cú Chulainn or Sun Wukong.

Edit:

In short, I feel like (from my exposure) that 5th edition is sliding the game and the community back to what I heard (and have seen) it was like back in 1e/2e days. I don't like that and it's not a community I want to be a part of.

Well I may very well be one of the "abrasive" poster's, when you express some strong opinions (i.e. "Cyberpunk is lame", "Swords and Sorcery rocks") than that is hard to avoid (also "abrasive" is just plain funnier) so sorry about that. While I bought 3e (and then was irked by first 3.5 & then 4e were released so soon afterward), I never found a chance to play it, and I've been curious to try since the "Inner Sea" setting looks interesting and while previously I felt that
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after reading in this thread what some say 3.P does "better", I'm reconsidering trying it since those aspects are what I don't like about 5e!
That is I prefer something closer to the "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" stories I read, rather than the "Naruto" cartoons my son watches, plus I now quickly suffer from "options fatigue".
While I've had "hella" fun playing 5e, it is not the perfect edition of D&D for me, because that edition doesn't exist.
My ideal form of D&D would:
1) Be as easy to learn and to create PC's as the 1977 "Basic" D&D rules were.
2) Have as quick flowing combat as 5e has.
3) The ability to make special "snowflake" PC's like 3.x D&D.
4) Feel as intuitive to GM as early 1980's "Call of Cthullu".
5) Have a "Ranger" class as awesome as the1e AD&D Ranger was.
Since "perfect" D&D doesn't exist, the free 5e Basic Rules plus some of the extra rules in the PHB is "close enough for government work", and plenty fun for me.

@ 2D8HP: Then you definitely want 5th edition or E6 3.P. That simulates the level of sword and sorcery you're looking for, while full blown 3.P quickly escalates into high end mythology where you're fighting unborn moons while throwing mountains and channeling a spell capable of nuking cities from your private demi-plane, while controlling your army of custom made supersoldiers.

And that's it, low and high (or traditional D&D vs. D20) are different genre's.
One is Howard and Leiber, the other is Myth and Wuxia. The transition from one to the other is jarring (also the more I learn of them D20 sounds as bad or worse to me than the much maligned 4e).
For the types of Swords and Sorcery stories I like, I think oD&D was often better, and my ideal D&D would combine oD&D and 5e.
Also the BRP'ish Stormbringer! game of the early 1980's often did Swords and Sorcery better than D&D, but it's flaw was that with its random generation method your PC was as likely to be a drooling begger as well as a mighty sorcerers or warrior, making many of the PC's "sidekicks". Perhaps something with Champions/GURPS style build points, and just get away from levels?