And looks like you are asuming that CrashGirl is the only person in the world who likes to do that things...
So when you finished Deus Ex, the thing that stood out for you was the enticing gameplay aspect of managing your health in the game?
Listen, I'm not saying that it can't contribute to how much FUN you get out of it. If you like the challenge of knowing you have 1 HP left and you haven't saved your game for an hour, then that's great.
But don't go making it into something more than it is. It makes the game more challenging and difficult. There is no way it's the "key aspect" of Deus Ex gameplay. You don't look on the back of the box at read "Fantastic Health Management System" under the features list.
I think we do not understand each other... I love challenging games and games with good health management are challenging games, i do not think that it's key aspect but it is one very good way how to make game challenging if you do make some effort to design the health packs in a way that they are not evrywhere, or even worse to make game with auto regen... i played few games with auto regen... there was absolutely no challenge involved... everytime i got low on health and no medpack was around i went to make a call to my gf or friends or make me a food or go to the toilet... if you like that sort of gameplay, its good for you, but i will be bitching about every single game with auto health regeneration...
EDIT: and one another thing... i mentioned it somewhere before but i post it here awell, i did not play any FPS game for 5 years then i installed few old and new games, and if i had to play almost every single new game from start on hardest difficulty to find it at least little bit challenging, i tell you there is something realy wrong with current gamedesign...