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Woohoo, this thread isn't dying! 
What's wrong with invisibility on/off? Let's break out some examples... The following are all stealth-centric roguelikes. They're short games but they specialise entirely on stealth, so they tend to do it well.
kusemono - You can always see an enemy's viewable area on the map. Normal combat is weighed against you, but hitting an unaware enemy insta-kills them. You have a rush ability that lets you get close quick and kill before they see you. The stealth tension comes from trying to kill groups and meeting unexpected enemies around corners.
Rogue Assassin - Play as a stealthy assassin. Again you're aware of enemy field of view and must sneak around/kill them. Various items help. Trying to throw enemies off the chase is fun.
sick peter - A game by me (written in 5 hours, so lacking some polish). An enemy cannot see you if you are more than 3 squares away. They lose track of you if you run away. You're faster than them, so this isn't too hard, but movement costs stamina, forcing you to rest now and then. You cannot attack, so this is a pure stealth game.
Toby the Trapper - A little off theme here, but this has stealth elements. Again written by me (a 7DRL) - you move twice as fast as enemies and leave a "scent" behind. It's easy enough to lose enemies, but the objective is more to lure them about carefully.
Shadow Rogue - I can't remember this precisely, but it's a 7DRL with some stealth mechanics that I seem to remember were done pretty well.
Outside of the sphere of roguelikes there are the Tenchu and Metal Gear Solid games for inspiration - both are very clear to the player about their situation.
A deterministic stealth system relies on some information not being known to the player. In particular you won't know what's around the next corner, and you can't always predict what the enemy will do next move. Though you are certain in your current turn future turns involve risk, and you have to keep reassessing your situation turn by turn. I quite enjoy this sort of gameplay myself.
I didn't say I wanted a purely deterministic system by the way (though as seen above it can be done). Just one where you feel less at the mercy of the dice rolls and the modifiers. Or at least more transparency so you know when you're in a secure situation or not.
Chess is the counter example. Chess involves risk, but has no randomness - the risk comes from not knowing what the other player will do and only being able to hold so many scenarios in your head at once. Risk requires imperfect information. Randomness can do that, but I'd much rather it be from AI decisions and unknown map layout than a straight roll every damned turn. It feels more fair in the context of a game that should reward tactical decisions.
I haven't seen a 1d15 in Sil. In fact the dice ranges seem very very restricted. What's the difference tactically between 2d7+1 and 3d5? There is a little bit of decision based on strength and weapon weight but overall I found no hard decisions between weapons in the game. Of course I didn't get that far, so I'm happy to be corrected on this.
You hit the monster. Critical hit! 0 damage.
I don't see the relevance of critical hits in Sil. They don't feel special when x% of the time a regular hit does more damage. The critical hit chance may as well be changed into a constant modifier on the dice rolls for all the good they really do - much more simple and beautiful. There is no way to tactically take advantage of critical hits, and in normal play you only notice them against very strong enemies. Does anyone actually build characters around maximising crits at the expense of other bonuses? Because I can't see how this would actually work well in Sil. It's just too random to take advantage of.
But please, do correct me if I'm completely wrong about this!
What's wrong with invisibility on/off? Let's break out some examples... The following are all stealth-centric roguelikes. They're short games but they specialise entirely on stealth, so they tend to do it well.
kusemono - You can always see an enemy's viewable area on the map. Normal combat is weighed against you, but hitting an unaware enemy insta-kills them. You have a rush ability that lets you get close quick and kill before they see you. The stealth tension comes from trying to kill groups and meeting unexpected enemies around corners.
Rogue Assassin - Play as a stealthy assassin. Again you're aware of enemy field of view and must sneak around/kill them. Various items help. Trying to throw enemies off the chase is fun.
sick peter - A game by me (written in 5 hours, so lacking some polish). An enemy cannot see you if you are more than 3 squares away. They lose track of you if you run away. You're faster than them, so this isn't too hard, but movement costs stamina, forcing you to rest now and then. You cannot attack, so this is a pure stealth game.
Toby the Trapper - A little off theme here, but this has stealth elements. Again written by me (a 7DRL) - you move twice as fast as enemies and leave a "scent" behind. It's easy enough to lose enemies, but the objective is more to lure them about carefully.
Shadow Rogue - I can't remember this precisely, but it's a 7DRL with some stealth mechanics that I seem to remember were done pretty well.
Outside of the sphere of roguelikes there are the Tenchu and Metal Gear Solid games for inspiration - both are very clear to the player about their situation.
A deterministic stealth system relies on some information not being known to the player. In particular you won't know what's around the next corner, and you can't always predict what the enemy will do next move. Though you are certain in your current turn future turns involve risk, and you have to keep reassessing your situation turn by turn. I quite enjoy this sort of gameplay myself.
I didn't say I wanted a purely deterministic system by the way (though as seen above it can be done). Just one where you feel less at the mercy of the dice rolls and the modifiers. Or at least more transparency so you know when you're in a secure situation or not.
As it works currently you can't even give the player full disclosure of the odds, because they are perception checks for monsters you might not even see yourself (nor know their perception skill). For me it would be a complete immersion breaker when I could play a stealthy character without detection risk - risk requires randomness.
Dice in combat: It makes a lot of difference whether you do 1d15 or 2d7 damage (despite the same average damage, because of the different distribution, very important against armor and of course criticals) - adding a lot of flat modifiers would take many tactical choices out of the combat system - it makes much less difference if you only choose between 2d6+6 and 1d6+9 because the modifiers make everything too similar.
You also would have to scrap the whole system of critical hits when you start with flat modifiers. Actually, the combat system which you can summarize as strength adds sides, criticals add dice is a piece of simplicity and beauty.
I don't see the relevance of critical hits in Sil. They don't feel special when x% of the time a regular hit does more damage. The critical hit chance may as well be changed into a constant modifier on the dice rolls for all the good they really do - much more simple and beautiful. There is no way to tactically take advantage of critical hits, and in normal play you only notice them against very strong enemies. Does anyone actually build characters around maximising crits at the expense of other bonuses? Because I can't see how this would actually work well in Sil. It's just too random to take advantage of.
But please, do correct me if I'm completely wrong about this!
I fully concede. And from your other comments it seems there is much more weapon variety than I have encountered.
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