I don't think it's clearly superior at all.In 4e you never actually fought enemies wildly out of your level range. The instruction was to use roughly level appropriate opponents so that you would not never face those extreme numbers, that would break the game. The game even had awkward kludges like minions to deal with the math failure. 5e approach where the math just works and you can fight enemies of much lower and higher level without having to change the their stats is clearly superior.
The 4e approach, with stable to-hit rates of around 50% to 70%, supports the system's approach to non-damage consequences of hits, both on the player-delivery side and the player-receiving side. It also supports more interesting play in general.
The 4e approach also makes a wider variety of fiction feasible: there is no incongruity, in 4e, in having a mid-paragon PC battle a Hobgoblin phalanx (in stat terms, a swarm), or in having a mid-epic PC battle a flight of Vrocks (again, in stat terms, a swarm).
Right. This is one of the things I have in mind - not the only one - in denying that the 5e approach is clearly superior.Maybe they are 4e minions, or 4e swarms?
I would hate to be a player in a game where my DM makes this encounter in 5e; that's a LOT of dice rolling where the goblins need 17+ to hit only to do piddly damage. I suppose mathematically it's technically a threat, but I will be dead of boredom first, no?
As I posted upthread, the 5e approach is (on balance) less demanding on the GM. (I say "on balance" because the issue of numbers of opponents and action economy does seem to be a recurring point of discussion/concern in the context of 5e encounter building.)
As a 4e GM, I was never perturbed by the demands the system made on me.