Yeah, the insistence on trading as a key part of the game (despite the garbage trading system) absolutely murders your loot, which is just a huge drag in a loot game.
Global trading means drop rates and gear quality have to be kept down across the entire playerbase, so stinginess is built in deeply on top of GGG’s inherent worship of time-wasting and RNG.
BTW, PoE2 separates skill gems from gear and removes color gem slot restrictions, so that at least frees you of the way PoE1 needed a drop to be good and to get good links and to get the colors you needed on those links. On the other hand, the simplified gem system is missing some life and fun. You don’t even level gems by using them anymore. You just burn a higher level gem drop to level a gem you already have.
