I think you are describing a particularly subjective experience.
Maybe so, but limited and subjective as my experience may be, I've still encountered many more GMs who say "Players want more challenge, and it's my job to give it to them!" than players who say "We want more challenge, and it's the GM's job to give that to us!"
In fact, I've only encountered players of that sort on-line, never face-to-face. I
have encountered players who want less favoritism shown to them by the GM for the sake of world-consistency, but that's a different matter, even if it also results in a harder, more challenging game.
And when I GM and see the players joyously knocking down the opposition I've set up, there's sometimes a little voice whispering in the back of my mind "I'm annoyed and bored by this, so the players must be bored too. Really, they
must be. Even though they appear to be having fun, they must actually want more challenge. So go ahead and give that to them. Do it! They'll
thank you for it."
I do my best to ignore that voice, because I know it's the one on my left shoulder, with horns and a pitchfork.
