Why No Melds?

[Fyce]

Yet becoming stronger is not the focus of a pen and paper roleplaying game. So playing an RPG and not caring about making your character as strong as you can makes perfect sense.

There's a word for those players who do focus on that. It's a derogatory term, too.

Who said it was "the focus"? I'm just saying it's a core concept of fantasy RPGs since... pretty much forever.
So, yeah. "Your character gains power because it's a RPG" is a completly valid statement. Saying that this idea "doesn't make sense at all" is completly absurd.

Your example isnt comparable to her statement.
You're comparing getting something for free, or already in your possession, that has no penalty for use, to having to go out of your way, stop doing the content/adventure you want to do, or stop trying to get even BETTER gear/stronger, to work on a minor upgrade.
While I like doing every step along the way usually, these are 2 different things.

This has absolutly nothing to do with what I said. I was specifically answering the very part I quoted, saying that yes, "RPG = character growth" more often that not.
If people don't understand that, then they have no idea what are fundations on which RPGs were built on to begin with.