Oh, we're back to banging that drum again, are we? I preferred it when your obsession was wild animals. (Just kidding!)
I entirely agree if it comes to bigger battles, and my chosen scale for that was always...
20mm! (what can I say, I started with plastic toy soldiers, as they were readily available in local shops in the time before the internet was really a thing).
But when it comes to skirmish gaming I see nowt wrong with using 28mm figs, in fact I think they are by far the bestest for that. And as for the pistol shot comment, well ground scale is a flexible attribute that needn't be set by the size of the figures, and individually-based 28mm figs don't have a hugely more massive footprint than 15mm ones (though granted, the vehicles do). Maybe that helps demystify the strange world of other gamers for you. I doubt it, mind.