I agree. I think that Scrabble is a great game which, by its very design, cannot be an interesting game at serious competitive levels. It’s great fun to play with a group of friends who will accept words on an unspoken honor system. But as soon as there is serious competition with meaningful stakes, it reduces almost entirely to the arbitrary choice of word lists.
The same is true for a lot of great party games. Scattergories is a great example. As soon as it becomes seriously competitive, the key rule (that everyone votes whether to allow each submission) effectively ruins the fun.
No, it's interesting at the low level (play with the words you know) and interesting at the "serious" level (memorize a substantial portion of the 250,000 words). You can tell the latter because there are plenty of serious Scrabble tournaments.
It breaks down somewhere in the middle, where you play with your group of friends but want to be competitive, and it turns out someone gains a huge advantage by learning all the 2- and 3- letter words, all the "Q without U" words, or whatever. One imperfect way to address this is to print out the 2- and 3- letter words and make them available to everyone.
It is not true at all that it’s not an interesting game at the higher levels. There’s so much more to scrabble than just whether a word is good or not.
The same is true for a lot of great party games. Scattergories is a great example. As soon as it becomes seriously competitive, the key rule (that everyone votes whether to allow each submission) effectively ruins the fun.