It's definitely a buzzword that's taken on it's own identity. I think in terms of genre, where everything has to be dumbed down to the smallest common denominator, "strategic," was the PR approved phrasing for "It's turn based," trying to soften the blow and maybe get a few oblivious gamer dollars from people who don't understand or have their decoder ring. Yes, I just made a blanket statement that the general public is stupid. Shocking.
Doing something in real time isn't any more or less strategic than doing it via menus and turns, arguably strategy becomes harder and more married to the gameplay than ever in real time, because you ACTIVELY have to think whilst doing.
People who prefer old school RPGs are in just mixed up in the lingo, I think, in conclusion. Like, there are nights when I'm in a "smoke a bowl and chill," mood and that's ideal for turn based games, whereas sometimes I just want all the pseudo-adrenaline of action games.
I will say that an added Hard mode in this old school re-releases of vintage RPGs could address the issue with the lack of ACTUAL strategy. Even the elements that I'd argue are closer to real strategy, like minmaxing and party makeup would be that much more relevant to the actual gameplay. But I guess that would require alteration to actual code, which is harder than just making everything look like Farmville and re-releasing it. But we're verging off into MY issues now, so I'll part with this reply.