Raycast without collider

If you want collision detection on your mesh you have to use a mesh collider. T$$anonymous$$s is not really advised, however, because of how computationally expensive it is to recompute the collider each frame. If you're targeting PCs then you might be able to get away with it for a few objects, but too many will cause a noticeable dip in frame rate. Mesh colliders, if used at all, are best used on static geometry that won't change or move (I.e. a chair, not a player character).

There really isn't anyt$$anonymous$$ng wrong with using a capsule either. Its not really dumb, and a lot of games work t$$anonymous$$s way in order to save computation time for other t$$anonymous$$ngs that were deemed more important in the development cycle. Everyt$$anonymous$$ng is a trade off, however, and if your game revolves around 'per-pixel $$anonymous$$t detection' then that's where you spend your resources.