I'm with Vlad on lethal systems, definitely. Give me victory or give me death in a few rounds and I'll be happy.
As for my combat philosophy as a GM: I've always been far more on the theatre of the mind spectrum of combat. I've used maps...and I don't love using maps. I'm fine at it - far from great - but my heart's not in it and everyone playing with me knows it. I just find that, especially in PbP, the whole narrative rule-of-cool tends to play out better when I'm not as worried about the difference between 30 and 35 feet.
If that's not sacrilegious enough, I also tend to take a JRPG random-encounter approach to my storytelling in DnD-like games. Fighting goblins and kobolds and bandits makes sense, sure, but the weirder, lesser used creatures in the monster manual call to me like a bridge to cross in Dragon Quest. There's too much JRPG in my gaming history and soul to not tell stories as if I was the one directing Chrono Trigger this time around. Give me a monster no one has ever heard of over another horde of goblins any day.
I've played in a lot of games, and had fun in a lot of games, and very few people tell stories in this medium the way I tend to. If I was a more anxious person, that might create a crisis of conscience. Luckily, I'm blindly optimistic for the most part, plus my players generally don't complain much, so I figure maybe it's a niche worth filling. haha