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It boils down to PF1 people being salty that they can't win BBEG fights thanks to being first in the initiative and casting a Persistent Save or Suck (except you can't save because the DC is 43 and the boss has +22 save) spell that ends the fight.
I am not entirely sure the OP understands the intricacies of the trait. It isn't using a 3rd level spell on a 15th level NPC that is a problem exactly. It is that you need at least an 8th level spell slot to be worth using on a 15th level enemy, and anything above 16th level that 8th level slot won't be worth using. You generally need to use your highest level slot to get mileage out of Incapacitation spells, and you only have so many of those to go around. And even that won't work on enemies more than two levels above you.
Incapacitation spells have a place in multi-enemy fights, particularly if you have a multi-target incapacitation spell. But people tend to fixate on big solo boss threats, as many believe those are the most challenging encounters.
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It matters most w/ boss battles (obviously) where one really wants to land a severe effect, yet that would lessen the drama & fun if all that danger were bundled up in one target then neutralized.
Yet that severe effect still works fine in most every other encounter. And there the danger's spread out more, so there's less of a wild fluctuation from the target missing their save.
The trait's also to the benefit of PCs IMO because they typically have higher levels than the enemies, who could wreck them w/ (perhaps much) lower-level spells, which also wouldn't be fun.
Ultimately, to get a major effect, one should use a major resource, i.e. their highest level slots. In that regard Incapacitation isn't a mark against an effect, it's saying, this is so darn good, we needed to adjust it to maintain game balance.
Your examples might be intentional hyperbole, but I would like to clarify the level difference triggers on anything even a single level higher than the Incapacitation effect. A caster's highest level spell slot is at most (Level÷2 rounded up) which is why the trait specifies double the spell level. As an example a 7th level spell or 14th level non-spell effect would suffer against a 15th level enemy. While it is ultimately up to your GM, it is not at all uncommon to fight things one level higher than the party. An odd level spellcaster using their highest spellslot can scrape by against enemies one level higher but the Incapacitate trait kicks in at two, obviously due to the rounding issue.
Short answer; this comes up a lot and severely degrades effects with the trait. They tend to be fairly powerful so it is almost certainly good for game balance.
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Can someone please explain how often the drawbacks are going to kick in, especially at what levels it's a serious problem for the character/party?
They kick in constantly, if you insist on using the spell against the wrong targets.
Like, if you have a fireball, do you think that makes the most sense against a solo boss? Or is it better in a room full of mooks?
It's the same thing with Incapacitation. It's not good against bosses, at all. But it can be good against mooks.
Does it feel good to use your high level spells against mooks? Well, maybe it should - because monsters get high numbers, mooks are pretty dangerous. And a mook that helps the boss flank, makes the boss crit more. That's also dangerous.
So look at incapacitation spells and ask "if this can quickly take out an effective mook, does that make that a good use of the spell slot?"
Semantics aside, incapacitate is largely only useful for controlling mooks and is otherwise worthless. You might be able to use it against equal level creatures, but the chance of them failing or crit failing their save is low enough that it's not worth considering. Most also have no effect or only a weak effect on a successful save.
Since most incap spells are single target, and single target controlling of mooks isn't worth it, most incap spells are entirely without value.
The most commonly used incapacitation spells by players in my experience are calm emotions and overwhelming presence (I actually only see these two used). Both are AoE and do horrible things to enemy threat level on a failed save. CE prevents all hostile action from targets that fail and OP effectively prevents two rounds worth of hostile actions (and still prevents two actions on a successful save).
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Personally, I love incapacitation effects. They make me feel powerful.
However, I can see why people take issue with them. They generally don't do what you'd expect a spell to do.
Let's say you're in a real tough fight. You're faced with an enemy of higher level than you. Normally, you would use your highest level spells on such a foe. However, since you filled those slots with incapacitation effects, their result will be treated as one step worse.
So it's clearly not a boss killer, or even a debuffer. Meanwhile, many non-incapacitation spells have worthwhile effects even if the BBEG makes their save.
In a different encounter, you are faced with numerous lower level enemies. You let go with your high level incapacitation spell and one of your foes dies horrifically, or becomes your minion, or whatever. Poor sod never had a chance against such power. Short of the rest surrendering at your awesome display of magical might, you still have the rest of them to deal with, and now you're down a high level slot. In contrast, a blast one level lower might have cleared the room, or at least paved the way toward that end by allowing your allies to more easily mop up.
Most incapacitation spells are single target. So they're not great against armies of mooks either.
So if they're not ideal against solo powerful foes, and they're not an efficient option against swarms of weaker enemies, when is the best time to use them?
Only time I can think of is when I want to play the bully, showing off my powers against a few nobodies that couldn't have easily defended themselves against me anyways.
And short of evil games, games where the GM sets the PC levels higher than normal, or games where problem players disrupt everyone's evening by suddenly assaulting the nobody innkeeper, that pretty much never happens.
It boils down to PF1 people being salty that they can't win BBEG fights thanks to being first in the initiative and casting a Persistent Save or Suck (except you can't save because the DC is 43 and the boss has +22 save) spell that ends the fight.
*sighs pleasantly* Ah, those were the days!
The basic principle is that stuff that is higher level than you is supposed to be scary, so you shouldn't be able to take it out with a single lucky roll.
Incapacitation effects aren't useless against powerful targets, you're just never going to get the critical failure effect which would usually permanently remove them from the fight.
What they're trying to do is walk the tightrope between "the players should never have anything that will instantly destroy the big boss at the end of the campaign even if the boss rolls a 1" and "the players should have access to big powerful effects that end fights, because magic should feel cool and powerful."
Incapacitation effects sometimes being wasted spells is honestly an easier thing to live with than "lol, Karzoug rolled a 1 against suffocation".
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The other side of it, of course, is making it so that you can have a ghoul that is scary with its paralysis against a level 1 party, but not have repeated saves completely lock down a party a few levels later, when a pack of them is appropriate, level-wise.
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On NPCs, I think incapacitation works to balance a bit like the line you also often see on aura effects like bad smells, where succeeding at the save once, or even just being exposed once, makes you immune against it in the future.
If it didn't have that, then if you run into say, five monsters with that ability, you'd be rolling so many saves that you'd be guaranteed to fail.
That's a great point, Hammerjack and Ascalaphus.
As someone who was absolutely mobbed by ghouls in one game, I was quite glad to see the incapacitation trait.
Saved the party too as the GM didn't immediately realize it and initially had half the heroes paralyzed.
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I'd like to reiterate the comment from Ascalaphus: Boss + mook is a very common setup, and Incapacitate spells can massively change the dynamics of such a challenge.
I think a lot of people struggle with incapacitate as a trait when they approach the game only as a play and options for players. It is interesting how PF2 has made much of NPCs operate different from PCs, but still able to use a lot of the modular components across both. In this case spells and special abilities. PF1/3x did try to implement similar components that were pretty clunky in that they affected x number of hit dice.
Certain spells became completely unusable with this restriction without specific class support to change those numbers, and meta magic didn't really work well with it.
PF2 tries very hard to make sure that there is no spell, item, feat, or ability that is just always the best choice in every situation, and encourages players to build characters that don't try to over specialize in one tactic as a result.
Any character built entirely around incapacitation effects is going to get disappointing fairly often, but that will be true of a caster that tries to only memorize summoning spells, or illusions, or magic missile.
What the incapacitation trait adds to the game is the ability to have incredibly powerful spells, without have to deal with low level fey sorcerers who gets their hands on a high level scroll and can put powerful monsters to sleep or implant thoughts in their brain
Yeah, in PF1, you could really cheese your DCs. I like incapacitation because it works well with the level to proficiency, giving 2 layers of distinction to level being meaningful