I'm surprised it took me so long to explain properly in detail exactly why QTE is such a terrible game design choice but I think it's important to articulate your thoughts rather than be some irrational douchebag about it. Oddly enough, it was my recent attempts at trying to play modern 'rockstar games' and finally tweak on them that did it. I can't seriously think of any gamer who looks at that shitty gameplay and goes "Yes, I can't wait to tap a button repeatedly in order to progress through a cutscene that has nothing to do with the gameplay!".
Do you guys remember how they did it in older games? I even have something of a reliable formulae on that as well and I'm making notes on it which is part of what this post is about.
gameplay/cutscene/gameplay/cutscene/ - Simple right?
Now it's fucking
Gameplay/CutsceneQTE/QTE/Gameplay/CutsceneQTE/CutsceneQTE WITH EPIC ENDING PRESS X TO APPRECIATE
It's the "Press F to pay respects" meme on steroids and I hate it. Finishing a game used to be a joy, you used to get excited with a story driven game and could sit back and watch it like a movie for a reward once you beat a certain section a.k.a Halo 2 ( Especially with the amazing anniversary cutscenes ).
Now you have to keep doing this bullshit of "PRESS X TO APPRECIATE CUTSCENE" and it drives me fucking mental. Games developers much like with ubisoft with their gameplay breaking UI vomit seem to have tricked themselves into thinking this is what gamers want or alternatively and sadly more likely this is pretentious hipster nonsense and they really think this design philosophy is the way to go and then they act shocked that so many gamers aren't interested in their stupid walking simulators. It's so damn boring with arguably no real gameplay you could probably code some hotkey script to play the game for you.
TAP X REPEATEDLY TO COLLECT CASH LOOK AT HOW AMAZING THIS CRIME GAME IS YOU GUYS BY THE WAY YOU CAN'T SKIP IT EITHER
On the flipside, the Krauser knife fight could only be a QTE.
I think its related to what you said, in that the reaction time on them in a lot of games (especially RE4) were so tight and punishing that they lost any ability to be better than annoying.
Which, imo, is also a problem with the non-uniformity of buttons. Like, reaction time level prompts really suck when its "PRESS X IN 0.5 SECONDS" but you are playing on a Playstation after mostly using a Gamecube where that button is a completely different location. Compared to normal gameplay where button locations are reactionary instead of having that extra step of "where is X" in your mind.
You bring up a good point. When games get ported to other systems, X and Y are no longer where they used to be. As well as A and B. And when RE4, (using the same example game), got ported to the Wii, you had to use a different hand sometimes, which was on the nunchuck. And that'd throw you off if you're used to just using your thumb., If you're like me and beat the game each time it went to a new console, and the badly ported PC version that oops forgot to bake in the lighting the first time, just to see if I could get a faster time, or see what was different in this new version.
The QTEs became mini adventure games. Did they port the UI right? Or am I going to see Gamecube/PS2/original Xbox controls on the PC screen. I honestly don't remember if they did iron out that frustration. They probably did, or you'd hear me cursing about it on the other side of the earth.
RE4 was also an asshole about it and would change up some (but not all) the button prompts. So you couldn't just rely on muscle memory even on the same system.
There is a lot that goes into making "good QTEs" that most devs don't even bother thinking about. Its how you end up with either impossibly fast ones that make you hate the game or incredibly boring ones like "F to pay respects."
I don't think RE4s were that good, but given the context of the time (where super long, unskippable cutscenes were the norm) I see why they were popular enough to become a trend.