What other defensive options do you guys want? Like seriously, right now the defending player (at neutral) can 1) Counter 2) Block 3) Sidestep 4) Crush. In stun, countering still can do too much damage relative to the attacker's move.
Couple this with the fact that the majority of moves are - on block (and some moves are - on hit even) I'd say the offensive player is the one taking the risk in attacking.
DOA4 was (and is) the worst DOA in the series. Did I have fun with it? Yes, as I took it for what it was. Which was not a particularly competitive fighter where as in it was just a constant guess-fest. Did I hit you against the wall? Oh, now I have to guess if you will counter (low vs mid/high) or crumple escape. I hit you against the wall, why should I have to guess yet again?
DOA5 isn't perfect by any stretch, but it's not the worst in the series nor is it a rushdown, offensive fest as you guys are making it out to be. Good luck attacking when you are (almost) constantly negative after being blocked.
Like I said, people constantly doing rushdown actually works to a counterers advantage, because its just more opportunities to counter them.
The issue, like Mailifang said, is mostly psychological: Everyone just mindlessly rushes in trying to do guaranteed damage, no longer afraid of being countered due to the small damage taken from counters (as compared to past games, anyway).
In DOAU and DOA4 (didn't get to play DOA3 with that many people, living in the mountains.), fights were more tense and strategic because nobody wanted to get caught by those high damaging counters.
Now though..it's more just more of a routine than any kind of a fight. "They picked this character, so they'll spend the entire match rushing in trying to do this guaranteed damage combo, and i'll either repeatedly counter the beginning of that counter over and over, or i'll slip up and eat it." It's not tense or exciting anymore because of people just rushing in without fear of being countered.
A lot of the variety is killed, as well, due to there being more guaranteed stuff. Before, people mostly needed to just take the damage opportunities when they came up, otherwise spending the fight...yaknow, fighting. Now though, everyone just tries to beeline straight for all the guaranteed stuff. Again, a combination of both there being more guaranteed damage situations, as well as the lack of fear due to counters being reduced in effectiveness.
As for your wall question, here's the answer: Because there's no reason they should lose control of their character just for being put against a wall. They should be at a disadvantage, but not lose (almost) complete control. But that comes back to the original point of "People don't want a match, they just want guaranteed damage and easy wins."
Long story short, DOA didn't have as much rushdown as other fighters did, which is exactly why I loved it. I played DOA to get away from the monotonous routines of other fighters. But now DOA5 has made it so most matches ARE those monotonous routines I used to play DOA to get away from.