I will say the run backs in Silksong/HK are better than, for example, DS1 for the reason you give. In DS you just run past enemies and it's trivial. In the HK games running past enemies becomes a platforming challenge. Yeah, you can still do it, but you still have to engage with the enemy even if that's just jumping over them. DS you just run past them and they almost always too slow to engage with you if you're sprinting.