You haven't provided an argument, you just stated why you didn't like something. I don't like taxes, but I'm paying them.
Hard stats take subjectivity out of the equation. When my troops go against yours, it becomes a muddled "Well my troops are pretty good," and "Well mine have been training for such and such years."
Stats are a hardline reference from all players find a baseline to remove any issue of hurt feelings and gives a valid base from which to grow.
In my opinion, their too impersonal and game-like to work with the standard forum RP. A properly Role-played character or nation is more complex than any amount of stats or skills can express, and I personally dislike being limited in my ability to role-play my character as I see fit by a sequence of representative numbers.
Well even in real life context this is false. Real life nations are largely an expression of dollars spent and bodies that can work. Look at the last World War, it was won by "bullets, beans and bandages" the Soviet Union and United States simply outproduced their opponents, regardless of how fierce Hitler thought his Tiger tanks were.
Ultimately, it's just a matter of personal preference. I myself don't enjoy RPing with stats, but I know that quite a few others do. In the case of a NRP, a good alternative that was used on the Bethesda Forum was getting a general vote in the OOC for the outcome of a situation. If I may use a battle for an example, assuming there is no absolutely clear victor, each participant would present their battleplans on the OOC and the non-biased RPers for the situation would democratically decide the outcome. Alternatively, each participant in the battle would PM their battleplans to the GM (or preferably a small go up of Co-GMs, to keep things more fair) and the GM(s) would decide the outcomes themselves.
Well this isn't a very good option either -- my vote will ALWAYS go to the outcome that best benefits my nation, not the one that makes the most sense. If you're giving me a vote, I'm going to try and make it impactful to better my own nation, in the sense of Otto von Bismarck.
In things other than battle, it's usually enough to just have everyone do whatever they want in the IC until someone protests someone's actions in the OOC. After the issue is brought up, a popular or GM vote ensues and a decision is made (usually in the form of a nerf). Anyway, those are just a couple of suggestions for alternatives to stats and the like.
This is borderline insanity. "Let people do whatever they want until it upsets you."
