If by action-style combat, you mean combat-style combat, then, yes, totally. If I swing a sword at something that is within range, it hits. Wailing on an enemy for a couple of minutes and doing no damage just catches, kills, and bins immersion.
Combat in an RPG should be about the character's own abilities, not player skill. Just because you the player can hit something every time doesn't mean your character can.

The only real issue with Morrowind's combat is the poor animations. There should be some kind of dodge/miss animation to show that your character has missed.
You can simulate life by simulating life.

You don't need numbers to do it. What this character should do in this situation and why is what determines how I play them, not whether they've reached a particular skill level. Morrowind's number-crunching 'spreadsheety' approach was too formulaic for playing characters: it felt like I was playing a machine.
If my character walks upto a rock, what determines whether they can lift it? Numbers. If my character finds an old book written in an ancient language, what determines whether they can read it? Numbers. If my character hits an NPC in the face then speaks to them the next day, how is that NPC going to remember that my character is a bad person? Numbers.
Again, characters in a video game do not have muscles, or a brain to remember. Everything is done using numbers. Those numbers don't necessarily have to be visible to the player, but they're there working behind the scenes.
Without numbers to define them, your character is essentially just an avatar, and you're not playing as them, you're playing as yourself through that avatar.