That would be a bad move you’re right, if every Attribute added the same flat +Damage. But that’s not what I’m advocating for : I want 1 main Attribute that’s good all the time and 3 secondary Attributes that work in combo with main, which is exactly what DEX and WILL already do at the moment.
Point retention should never be encouraged. That’s why they have respec, so we won’t need to.
That’s already the case for DEX and WILL : +Crit Chance and Energy Regen both increase damage (and mitigation). So why is there only one Attribute that doesn’t ? It just looks like something you don’t want to spend a point into.
Of course we may speculate there will be very powerful Talents and Legendary Powers that rebalance things so an INT Barb can become as efficient as a STR Barb with the right choices and items. That would just be a little bit contrived but it would work.