RM give only one outcome: death.
Nope: the enemy can surrender. The enemy can get hit unconscious.
Even if you use the whip to punish a prisoner you will probably end with a dead one ...
Even if you try to grapple an enemy you will mime it ... if not killing it.
And you have no control on it.
I disagree. If you use your whole OB with a whip and you're a proficient whip-user, what do you expect when attacking? Using the whole OB indicates that you want to see your opponent dead, doesn't it? And even then your GM should have at least some common sense when you want to torture your victim. Sometimes, asking for a roll is asking for trouble. Just tell the GM that you want to cause some pain, period.
Some for skills. You roll and ... puff, a 66. Damn, I've a 120 in climbing!
Fun at the start... but after a while it gives a sense of randomness...
Or the opposite.
Believe it or not: even skilled car drivers can suffer an accident. Even professional ski-athletes can fall down & break a limb. That is called bad luck, this is life.
You face a impassable lock. A lucky player will roll. 100. Puff, you unlocked the lock.
I have experiences in witch a player complained about his "excessive" luck.
There are people in this world who are lucky. That is unfair, but this is life. A former schoolfellow is such a lucky person - whatever game (with a random element) you play, he is going to win, because fortuna smiles at him. Every. Single. Time. Yes, it is unfair - but there is also nothing you can do against that.
And for the spells: I always hated
(A)D&D for its spell system. Memorize a spell, cast it, no danger or possible fail to fear. Never. Fighters and thieves were useless after a few level-ups, any combination of a wizard and a cleric could do better - just think of
Invisibility or
Silence 10'. Magic is mighty and absolut relieable. When I discovered
Shadowrun, I was happy that there is a price to pay and perhaps some danger, if you wanted to cast a spell - but soon I realized, that you only need some decent stats to ignore most of the dangers of spellcasting.
In
Rolemaster, spells still are powerful and useful, but finally the casting really can have a disastrous result. This is why spellcasters rarely cast spells in every available situation - they should always ask themselves if the situation justifies the risk.
Please do not be offended, but I completely disagree - all points you mentioned why you are unsatisfied with Rolemaster are almost exactly the points, why I chose it as my favorite game.
And by the way: in (A)D&D, for example, you make a skill check and the result is binary, most of the time: success or failure (a natural 1 or 20 is the same as in Rolemaster, but the possibility to roll one of those numbers is a lot higher...). Rolemaster has variations in the degree of the success.
(Note that, for example, we could say that Fate Points already do this: players can choose when and how to spend FP, thus gaining partial control of the "story".)
Sorry, if I misunderstood you, but when are the player not in partial control of the story?
I once had a GM whose adventures where like straightjackets and I really detested it. There is a reason why I prefer RPGs over computer games: I have the option and the chance to go my way or do the things I want to do. If I want to blackmail the guard, why can't I? Because the GM doesn't want it? Because some programmer forgot to write the script? I want freedom and I want to decide if I want to pursue the adventure or if I look for another one without being punished for not following the pointers.