Except relative to every other animal out there.
Except we don't fight animals much in D&D. We fight monsters, other men, and often humanoids of greater strength.
The human body fairs poorly when another human subjects it to sharpened steel backed with velocity.
Yeah this "no one should ever play a disabled character!" line is really grating.
If a player said, "I want to play a PC with all 3s in their ability scores except a 9 in their class requirement", I'd let them. They might even have fun doing it, but nothing is going to change in my setting to accommodate them. And when they have take -3 penalties, there wouldn't be any concern for their complaints or upset.
What's clearly being demanded is accommodation of the bizarre. Both Stephen Hawking and Conan must be equal in melee. Helen Keller and Shakespeare must be equally capable of diplomacy and oratory. It's this entirely insane demand of "equity of outcomes" that's been poisoning our schools and academia, and of course, fuels all their anti-merit and anti-capitalist agendas.
I've played lots of Warhammer 1e. Sometimes you run out of Fate points and suffer a crit, and now your PC gets maimed. Most times, I've noticed players don't want to play a sub-optimal character because now that PCs can't do what they previously did. A hook doesn't clone a hand, a pegleg won't be equal to a working leg, and that glass eye isn't helping your awareness. I suspect Gygax understood this and its why D&D skips permanent wounds for abstract HPs.
As a player, I've enjoyed playing horrid beggars in Stormbringer, but never once did I expect the GM to toss my character magical goodies to negate the disadvantages of playing a broken street beggar. I chose to turn a dangerous RPG into double hardcore mode for myself so it was on my shoulders to accept the downsides of MY choice.
This reminds me of my theory about why we find so many folks like this in the hobby. They already live in a fantasy world, so RPGs are just the next logical step.
Bingo.