Too Old, Too Cold? Playing older characters in D&D/Pathfinder

I must declare an interest here - I hate the ageing rules in 3.0 and 3.5 D&D, not to mention Pathfinder. Apart from making non-magical characters ever more useless, and giving an unfair advantage to Magic classes, it also makes no sense:

At middle age, -1 to Str/Dex/Con; +1 to Int/Wis/Cha.
At old age, -2 to Str/Dex/Con; +1 to Int/Wis/Cha.
At venerable age, -3 to Str/Dex/Con; +1 to Int/Wis/Cha.

SOURCE: The D20 System Reference Document

After all, characters are not like normal people. They heal quickly with magic, survive things that would kill most people, they come back from the dead (preferably via a Cleric and not a Necromancer) and they are generally larger than life.