I think frying in butter, especially, requires a great deal of attention to freshness and a total absence of black crunchy bits in the butter

Yes!

I do like butter, adore it in fact, but the smoking point is so low you have to pay great attention to it, and the medium of heating.

There are, of course, tasty fried things I've eaten; seems they've just not come to impress me all that much, or overpower the standard experience.