I don't see why it has to be about cheating death. What about just the fact that you're accomplishing the climb yourself, with as little external help as possible? A free solo climb doesn't even use any tools, other than climbing shoes and presumably light clothing. Having a massive drone flying next to you or a safety elevator makes it much less about just you and nature.

Imagine you completely reproduced a famous climb indoors with a 3D printer. Surely you can understand the difference between climbing that and climbing the real thing, even if the physical difficulty is identical.