The gear before loot 2.0 was atrocious. Values were too random. The best items for everyone was a perfectly rolled Skorn or whatever it was called with stats for their class. I sold and int based one for over 200 dollars.
I found a polearm that happened to have decent base damage, and nothing else. Sold it for $20 on the RMAH and ended up using that to buy the expansion when I finally came back.
Can’t stand the way it works now either though. It’s basically one of those idle games now. You just play the same shit no matter what difficulty. The only difference is the number of zeros on the damage numbersnas you gradually gear up to whatever the season armor is.
That’s what keeps people coming back to D2R. You get a new piece of gear and suddenly you can run areas that you couldn’t before. You have that carrot of maybe one day getting an enigma or eBotD, or you’ll get a good drop for another class and now you’re levelling up an alt so they can use that gear.