You really want to warm up that age old discussion? For me a perk system means more choice for me without doing stuff repeatedly that I don't really want to do. I can use any weapon I want, just like in A16, and can perk into any weapon I want, I may have to pay more perk points for a weapon in an attribute I haven't perked into, but so what? In an LBD system I would have to use the secondary weapon as often as the primary one, just to be good at it. Now I just choose that it will be as good. For example as an INT player I may decide that a shotgun might be a good secondary oh-@%$#-weapon and a good horde night weapon for me, while mostly using stun baton and turrets in daily POI clearance. In A16 I would still have to use the shotgun almost half the time going through POIs to get better at it, even though I only wanted it for oh-@%$# situations and horde night. Now I can just collect some perk points and my shotgun is ready for the few times I want to use it.
Another example: I want to do a big building project and need to dig a lot of stones for that. As I want to minimize the already huge task I want to start digging for real only when I am already good at it. In A16 I don't have that choice though. Now I have the flexibility to do quests for the first half of the game and put the perk strategically into miner69er. When I start digging I have the good tools and I am good at mining.
A16 always played the same as you started with pistol and mostly went up the ladder to automatic weapon. Now I can choose between weapons that are equally viable as each class (aka attribute) has its own weapon. And next playthrough I can take a different one, right from the start. Or even 2 or 3, even if it takes longer.
LBD is boring because there almost never is a time where you really have to choose. Even if A16 had equally viable weapons you would have to choose a weapon at start of the game and almost exclusively use it. Because using any other secondary weapon makes you fall behind on your first weapon. So normally you make most choices exactly once at the start of the game and then just play that till the end. What a boring progression on rails.