I play in single player. I have beat Hell mode on a druid ,amazon, and a sorc. As it sits. I have killed thousands of cows, terrorzone mobs, ran meph on hell and nm more times than i can count. And what do i have to show for all that effort. Not a single high rune. My amazon has the bis javalin. But thats it. No other bis gear for any other class. At this point its not bad luck. Your game is very simply telling me its not worth playing. And its a real easy fix. Normal should only drop low tier runes, mid tier runes only for nm, and hell should Only drop high runes period. Boss mobs like diablo should drop a unqiue/set item at least one guaranteed every kill. Otherwise without the power fantasy being fullfilled whats the point in watching my merc die for millionth time and me dropping another 50k to resurrect him if all im getting is a big goose egg at the end of every single run. When and if i finally do see a high rune its not going to be triumph i feel but exasperation. Because i know i still need a crap ton more. I just guess my point is. If i could refund this game i would. Hell is simply to much of a chore to be worth endlessly grinding just to get nothing.
What you are describing is more like Diablo 3 and recently Diablo 4 in my opinion. I play all 3 of this franchise and I kind like all of them for what they are individually. I have to tell you, legendary loot in D3 and D4 are raining from the sky all the time but at the end of the day, all of them are chore, it is just the nature of the ARPG genre.
I personally play D2 for its atmosphere and I like fight/filling mobs and getting loot, even a white item can be super cool to find especially if it is a good runeword base.
Once you beat hell, you have to play the game and your hero strategically to be efficient and rewarding. Like if you keep going back to blood moor because you like that area, you unlikely to get what you want or it will take a lot longer. You need to go to high rewarding areas like the Pit, Andariel, Arcane Sanctuary, Lower Kurast (superchest runs), Travincal (could be brutal early on), Chaos Sanctuary and so on. (I prefer to skip all ACT5 areas due to difficulty/reward ratio)
Gold however should not be an issue, early on you sell high value items you pick up like armour but later on it is no longer necessary, I usually get more than I need and tend to gamble away my surplus.
I reserve the right to be wrong but I suspect you are perhaps playing the game “wrong”. I am no expert but happy to help if you need advice. Happy slaying 