ARMORCLADVAMPIREBEAR_'S PROFILE

Stats are a representation of the player's insight into their own character, as well as the player's ability to choose how the character develops. Everyone has stats in real life as well, it's just that self delusion and negligence prevent us from looking at ourselves honestly.

Pro-stats, because the universe as we know it operates on math. It makes perfect sense that character progression would implement math as well. Any decision to obfuscate math is a decision to shroud the player's ability to choose what's right for their character with the developer's own subjectivity in addition to the subjectivity that's inherent to the overall game mechanics and balance.