I don't quite agree with you here. I think Elder Scrolls is a bad example to give because the series as a whole is probably one of the most unbalanced RPGs there are: even in Oblivion, the 'balancing mechanics' you refer to just encourage more unbalanced play -- as opposed to, say, Galsiah's Character Development in Morrowind which is ultimately a balancing mechanism but promotes more aspects of gameplay and prohibits undesirable behavior.
Balance is best used as a function to encourage meaningful and difficult gameplay, which I'd argue can be defined largely as the number of interesting choices a player has to make. I think 2048 does a poor job of this relative to Threes: after around a week of play I was able to consistently win using the corner strategy. In Threes, the variance in tile distribution means there is no such panacea.
(That being said, I agree that pursuing 'balance' in a game is like pursuing 'colors' in an artwork. It's a road to reach some desired destination: not a goal in of itself.)
Balance is best used as a function to encourage meaningful and difficult gameplay, which I'd argue can be defined largely as the number of interesting choices a player has to make. I think 2048 does a poor job of this relative to Threes: after around a week of play I was able to consistently win using the corner strategy. In Threes, the variance in tile distribution means there is no such panacea.
(That being said, I agree that pursuing 'balance' in a game is like pursuing 'colors' in an artwork. It's a road to reach some desired destination: not a goal in of itself.)