I don't agree with your take - I've always loved RTS games (played age of empires 2, StarCraft, Warcraft 3, deviated into lol/dota and back to StarCraft 2 and now age of empires 4) - basic strategies in terms of build orders are table stakes for these games and have been since as long as I can remember. You need to be able to react to changing situations in these games. Nobody executes build orders perfectly, and there's RNG in map spawns and layouts that can give you a subtle edge over your opponent. The game is won and lost on being able to react to your opponents moves and follow through on counters to it, the same way chess plays.