Shakespeare's tragedies were complex statements on human flaws and how they can lead to inevitable destruction. As you point out, the tradition goes all the way back to the Greeks. There is a sense that the outcome is a proper one, even if not a happy one.

Too much modern theater, and a lot of modern film, revels in pointlessness. I wish I had a dollar for every movie I saw in the 1970s where the protagonist dies or has something awful happen for no reason related to the plot or theme, but just to show that Life Is Shit, Ain't It?

I don't mind leaving a theater with tears, if they've been earned.

There are Rules to stories. They are culturally nearly universal, and far older than written language, and there's reasons for them.

Ayn Rand's "Romantic Manifesto" made some damn good points, even if she, in her own artistic taste, wasn't entirely consistent about them.

People who break the rules Just Because They Can don't impress me. John Cage's music doesn't impress me. Artists who draw a black circle on a white canvas don't impress me. To me, they are the equivalent of little boys who drop their pants in front of Mom's bridge club just to get a rise out of them.