To optimise or not?

Ban and I are optimisers, whether in single or multiplayer games. In this post, I would like to focus on table-top role-playing games (TTRPG).

Ideally, everyone should try their best to optimise their TTRPG characters. It would make their characters useful to the party and thus make everyone happy. I regularly encounter players who eschew optimisation in favour of flavour/roleplay-wise. For example, a DnD's Warlock can safely dump Intelligence and Strength to maximise their most important stats i.e. Charisma, Dexterity and Constitution to be useful but someone might say, "But my Warlock has to be intelligent because of his background."

Their character is either

(1) suboptimal but not bad because their most important stats are still reasonable: just not as a high as they could be because some points are allocated to their roleplaying stats, or

(2) terrible because their most important stats are weak.

In my heart, I would frown on (2) because they are just burdening the party. It's teamwork. I don't want the campaign to be about how one character essentially sabotage the party and everyone else have to work doubly hard to cover their glaring weaknesses.

Having said that, the most important consideration is their attitude when playing suboptimal or lousy characters. I've encountered the following:

(1) They somehow made use of their flawed character's build to successfully help the party. I guess you can have your cake and eat it too :D.

(2) They acknowledged their flawed character but still happily continue playing.

(3) They bemoaned their uselessness (poor build -> less chance at success) but was willing to listen and change their character's build (with GM's permission).

(4) They bemoaned their uselessness, was willing to listen to advice to make their character better but did nothing.

Loved (1) and (2), amused by (3) and sighed at (4). Fortunately, I have not encountered anyone like (4) but do it repeatedly i.e. regularly complain about being useless and yet do nothing about it.