You may already know this, but actually even a lot of modern game engines use nonphysical methods for moving characters - it's hard to make the character feel responsive using only impulses and friction, etc. I'm working on such an engine at the moment, and it wound up taking some hacking (e.g. I turn off the player's friction when a movement key is pressed - which makes sense when you think about it but seemed nonphysical at first!).
With that said, you've reminded me of an example of this. Years ago I was making a "UFO catcher" crane game in Flash, where the user moves a thingy left and right, and an attached crane arm swings freely like a pendulum. At first I thought: this isn't a damned physics simulation, I'll just hack something up. Then I spent probably a whole day trying to get it to not feel so wrong. Then finally I break down and get the formula for pendulum motion off wikipedia, and 15 minutes later it works perfectly - with maybe three lines of physics code. :D
With that said, you've reminded me of an example of this. Years ago I was making a "UFO catcher" crane game in Flash, where the user moves a thingy left and right, and an attached crane arm swings freely like a pendulum. At first I thought: this isn't a damned physics simulation, I'll just hack something up. Then I spent probably a whole day trying to get it to not feel so wrong. Then finally I break down and get the formula for pendulum motion off wikipedia, and 15 minutes later it works perfectly - with maybe three lines of physics code. :D