You are talking about Cho Oyu, not Everest. Everest, especially without supplementary oxygen, is a major achievement and if you don't prepare well, you are likely to increase mortality rate. Not to mention avalanches, falling seracs and a sudden major change of local weather can kill you anytime without any warning.
It's rare to climb without supplementary oxygen. Weather/avalanche/seracs fall in the objective hazard category and are unrelated to how fit you are (beyond moving through danger zones faster). Everest is not a major achievement, it's a high-altitude walkup.
Many people abort due to altitude sickness and resulting cerebral edema at altitudes below 7,000m but you never hear about it. Super-trained athletes can get altitude sickness and sometimes unfit people don't, and that can completely change a year later; it's basically a lottery if in a given time-span you are able to climb to the top or not. From about 7,500m your resting heart rate becomes over 120bpm and from 8,000 you are literally dying from asphyxiation; doing a 9h training run on a bike is easier than an hour on Everest at that altitude. Your mental capacity is diminished , you are no longer able to focus on other people just on yourself, and it's all about your own survival and your own will to progress further and live. Anything that goes wrong at that elevation is likely to kill you and maybe others around you as well.
But I agree that from purely technical standpoint there is only one spot on Everest that requires real climbing, but that one is pretty high up, making it super challenging comparing to e.g. Swiss Alps. As an athlete, you'd find south face of Nanga Parbat a real challenge that no "rich tourist" can ever climb and that's probably why you are so dismissive.
I think we agree it is a collection of objective hazards and getting to the top is largely chance. The baseline fitness required is not astonishingly high and is within reach of moderately fit people as they spend weeks/months at base camp acclimating.
Last I heard the Hillary Step had been destroyed in the earthquake, but people still talk about it so who knows. Also, I will never climb nanga parbat lol (barring the greatest midlife (end of life?) crisis the world has ever seen)
Yeah, there are conflicting reports about Hillary step:
"Last year, Mingma Tsiri Sherpa who has nine summits told the Daily Mail, “The fixed lines are more to the right of the step (than before). We’re now walking on the snow whereas before we had to walk on the rocky side. That is the reason for the confusion.” And 15 time summiter, Pemba Dorje Sherpa said “The Hillary Step is as it was before, but a large stone above it has fallen”"
