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CMV: The Witcher 3 would have been a better game without levels

Warning: This post contains minor spoilers 

Witcher 3 is a game where players adopt the role of Geralt, a Witcher, on his journey to save Ciri, his adoptive daughter and ultimately the World. It's a RPG with classical RPG elements such as dialogue choices, a level mechanic, some character customisation (via skills, gear, haircuts, playstyle etc.) and an open world to explore and interact with. 

I am quite fond of this game, I have completed it twice and I am currently re-playing it because of a recent patch. 

On to the issue: I believe this game would have been better without the level mechanic. Here are my arguments:

* From a lore perspective, levels don't make much sense. Geralt is already fully trained - this is supposed to be his final adventure after which he retires. He is supposedly over 90 years old. Not saying one can't teach an old dog new tricks, but having the progression start at Level 1 seems silly. In his earlier adventures, Geralt fought a Dragon, and now a pack of rabid dogs are giving him a hard time?
* Fairly at the beginning of the game, after the player leaves the tutorial section, Geralt is given 3 leads as to where to go look for Ciri. The 3 leads refer to 3 different areas on the map, and it's suggested that it is up to the player where to go first. The 3 leads are basically circular and the order in which they are followed doesn't affect the outcome. But because there are levels, and enemies also do have levels, the order is more or less restricted, as in the player does A first, then B, then C. The restriction feels arbitrary, especially since there actually is dialogue for going to C first, yet given the level situation, no one does that. 
* Gear also has levels, as in Geralt must have reached level X before he is able to use Sword Y, and once Geralt's level surpasses the level(s) of his gear too much, the need arises to switch to some higher level gear. From a logic perspective, this doesn't make a huge lot of sense to me, especially since Geralt can find the same sword multiple times, but with different levels. It's hard to wrap my head around how 2 of the same things can be so different, Geralt simply doesn't know how to use one of them. A sword is a sword, and Geralt at that age should know where to stick the pointy end.
* One might think levels in this game are required to prevent the player from reaching certain spots on the map so to not find things they aren't supposed to find etc. But that is not the case, some late game areas are walled of behind story progression points and are impossible to reach earlier. The player can not break the game for themselves by going anywhere on the map at any point, and in many cases the game even foresees this unlikely event and has extra dialogue in place for the special case that the player has already done a thing before getting the quest for it. 
* The developers were seemingly aware of a bunch of problems the level system introduced, and tried to mitigate these problems. For example, to prevent the problem that Geralt outlevels his enemies, an optional system was introduced that scales lower level enemies up to Geralt's level so there is still a challenge. Another example refers to the gear: there are a few special Witcher armor sets the player can find, and the player then can further find schematics to upgrade said Armor so it "grows" with Geralt to some degree and doesn't become useless after a short while. To prevent the player from needing to grind or from being able to level up "too quickly", experience is mostly gained via main quests and not side missions or various optional content. 

Now to be fair, the game gives you an option to play it without levels. It's a bit convoluted - if you play on PC, you can download a save from a Mod page that allows you to start a New Game Plus at level 100, which is the maximum level. In that case, Geralt can no longer level up further, all the enemies and gear are in a reasonable level range, and all the armor sets are also scaled to level 100 and therefore remain equally good choices that come down to play style and preference only. Console players might now also be able to do that, now that save sharing is possible, or by grinding and grinding up to level 100 before starting a New Game Plus (not recommended). 

I have played New Game Plus with a level 100 save before, and it was very eye opening. It was an overall better experience - the open world truly feels open, and the frustration the level system introduced are gone. But here is the problem: for a new player, level 100 Geralt might be not a good choice because it may be overwhelming and confusing, not to mention it's a New Game Plus, so Geralt not only starts with everything specced out, but also with a heap of cash and some end-game items, taking away this kind of progression from a new player. 

Overall, my opinion is that this game would have been better without levels. This might or might not apply to other RPG's too - levels are a cheap way of giving a player a sense of progression, but in this specific case it feels so arbitrary and out of place I believe The Witcher 3 would have been a better game without it. Change my view please.
gpt
> Fairly at the beginning of the game, after the player leaves the tutorial section, Geralt is given 3 leads as to where to go look for Ciri. The 3 leads refer to 3 different areas on the map, and it's suggested that it is up to the player where to go first. The 3 leads are basically circular and the order in which they are followed doesn't affect the outcome. But because there are levels, and enemies also do have levels, the order is more or less restricted, as in the player does A first, then B, then C. The restriction feels arbitrary, especially since there actually is dialogue for going to C first, yet given the level situation, no one does that.

I don't think that's a problem with the level system itself, rather that the game didn't bother to scale the enemies in those areas relative to your level, which would have easily fixed this.