Agreed, everyone should play in whatever way they enjoy it. Funnily enough I’m more of a casual, relaxed type of player and I don’t like stressful or hard games, but with D2 I just keep coming for more. Guess it’s got to do with it being one of my all time favourites and not being able to enjoy it any longer without the extra rush after so many hours in 1.09. But that’s the best thing about videogames, there’s no wrong way to play them! 
I’ve set up D2 so I can play /p8 on ladder in a private game using 7 virtual machines and 8 copies of the game on the same rig. At ladder reset I leveled a barbarian to lvl 8 then quit and have not gone back. I took on a new hobby in 2019 and ever since then whenever I play D2 my mind isn’t in it and so I can only play for an hour at most per sitting.
What’s interesting is when I read about people describing their game play I get an intense desire to play. Then when I start up the game after reading I lose all desire to play even before enter a character into a game. It’s hard to let go of this dear old friend called D2 LoD.
I used to play hundreds of games until I got into Final Fantasy XIV, now I pretty much became mono game too, although in that particular game I leveled every single job (class) including gatherers and crafters and explore all the activities the game offers. I’m always willing to play a game with a good story though. But I don’t really play in an obcessive way anymore.
D2 is always installed in any PC I own. It’s one of my favorite pick up and play game, and I usually create a character and beat all 3 difficulties at least once every few months. I just don’t really feel the need to go further (like say, hunt for the best loot or level past lvl 92 or so) as I’m more about the journey than the rewards. I used to get a weird feeling that I wasted my time when I achieve something that demanded a lot of time in a videogame while not enjoying the actual process, rather than feeling happy about it, and because I rate RNG based rewards, getting something really rare as a drop usually makes me angrier than it makes me happy. That I could have invested that time in some actually useful skill instead. So I focus on improving my craft rather than my gaming skills and opt for casual gameplay most of the time now.
I understand what you’re saying. I once use to cheer, jump up and down like a champion when Ber or higher would drop, lately it’s just a yes! In fact last time a Jah dropped I just cracked half a smile and made a teh sound. Grinding to 99 use to excite me, even knowing 3 years ago a person could turn $200 into 1 million dollars in the US in less time. Sadly, I started up the game this morning and there was no desire to play. Now-a-days my desire is on a new hobby outside of gaming. Eventually I’ll stop posting here, I don’t know when that will be but I want to wish you all the best - long healthy life and prosperity.