I see. But its too much for the current team. Just leave Shenlong alone, bluntly, I don’t trust monk developers. Non in the past 10 years knew what they were doing on monk. I am not sure if its due to monk community dont have a Free/Rage figure after Druin left. These guys do tremendous work to keep Barb in relative balance.
This should be standard these days, but a lot of builds are outdated.
True, distrust of devs is always a reason to want to keep things as is, but with capable ones I do think it would be the way to go with both monk and crusader to bring more sets into viable range without too much coding work. Other classes might need different things or just numbers for some sets, but for these two classes shenlong and Norvald would be where I would start by specializing them to one set only (preferably the worst ones) and then look at sets and how make them at least viable or rework over a number of seasons with other set classes to bring those in viable range as well (instead of continuing buff/nerf cycle), without shenlong and norvald as a danger that should actually be easier to do.
Look at Bul Kathos blades, the set is inferior on WW push. Restrict to 1 playstyle may not fix the problem, may add more problems or losing versatility in gearing. Looking at chantodo / manajuma / jesses skulls etc. .all have limited usage and heavily ties to its build whether flavour of month… Its already bad enough 99% of drops are instant salvage w/o ID. Shenlong/Norvalds at least have some spot light. I mean when is the last time someone uses Danetta?
Yeah and by that make other items like darklight and other class weapons into no goes. 
Yeah I would highly recommend and agree with you to at least improve those items so they will be at least competitive for the build they are meant for while devs would work to bring all builds up to viable also making immediately more builds playable if they can compete |(which does not mean per se outshine, if better they should have a play disadvantage), instead off the buff/nerf cycle in the remaining seasons D3 has. So there will be a good and fun foundation if 3 goes even further into maintenance after release of D4.
Not sure, this is a management philosophy I feel, for their resource management OR encouraging more builds been played. Most people likes to play flavour of months, rarely do research personalities like my self go so diverse into build experiences w/o some kind of incentives. OP is cut his build is slashed, alternatively he can view as opportunity to play other builds which is now buffed.
Yeah but exactly that philosophy with balancing around top meta and botters combined wth flavour of the season is what is partly the problem in my eyes. It maybe could be done well with a way bigger team as available, but that is neither here or there and I would still have my doubts. It also means that as long as they keep D3 up they will have to keep dedicating resources to the game and not like D2 1.14 do nothing for 10 years … or we will be left with a mess the day they decide it has been fun with differing seasons.
I dont think recent trend is to cater for elite player base. Game is aiming for majority player base (casuals) while providing options for elite players. Trend kind started with Impale/WW. XP took off because builds of a simpler rotation boost efficiency (botting) due to lowering gates for higher tier content. ZDH is a simpler support than ZMK in terms of execution. ZMK requires mantra to be spammed every 500ms (mantra ICD), while ZDH can be completely manual on choice at an elite level. The result is “simulation management” RPG is an upping trend over what ever RPG you define D3 is. Its hard to say Blizzard aimed for this, most likely NOT.
Hard to say, both EN Nerf and Inna nerf seem mostly to correct problems at end of meta or due to botters, same that necromancer nerf with bone spear, more as the health at casual level, which is quite bad anyway with that progress wall around 800-1200 paragon for many casuals who do not play meta, so reasonably easily can get to 2500 paragons and higher level gems and augments due to group play.
Even if EN augments itself was a step in that direction, nerfing the XP instead of having to use a key for each participant again is not. So to me it feels they do add things to make it easier and more rewarding for casuals and then ruin it each time again with blanket nerfs for sake top of player base in stead of just correcting for over rewarding at that meta. 
Just my opinion and feeling though.
At the time of Bone Spear nerf, most popular topic on this forum was necro been a VIP class / Blizzard money greedy for necro pack sales etc. Necro at the time was in one of any form of groups for 3 years. I am not certain if players on this forum pressured for its nerf.
Blizzard nerf builds for various reasons. Some times it nerf it due to server stress (primarily from various WD builds). Blizzard prefer Wiz, especially star pact since it’s ultra friendly on server stress. Its 2 year dominance in META may have caused a precedence that no build should allow such longevity. Inna is nerfed primarily due to 3 seasons of dominance, less due to its other efficiency. From a gaming developer point of view, ideally they want ALL their builds to be played, not just selected few.
“Aesthetic fatigue” No matter how appealing things are, human nature turns it into stale after long term exposure. No matter how fun “Lawn Mowing” content is, eventually it will be stale. It’s why push content (GR) was introduced back in 2014 and kept this game till now. W.O push content, this game would have died 5 or 6 years ago due to other superior options. Hence tactical side of D3 needs promotion or preservation. Build rotation wise, D3 is very simplistic compare to… ergh POE button smashing. Success in push is about GR management more than build/rotation execution. EN hurts GR management skills. It’s rather obvious trend that community grouped players primarily para from EN is incapable of the tier their paragon allows them. If EN is to remain as primary end game content (with 20T/hr XP it will be), challenge mode D3 will be extinct . Non of pure EN farmers I played this season knows what they are doing even on speed tier GR. Their paragon allows them to overkill the tier, yet they were overwhelmed. Some 7K RGK still killing the RG after my 3 min coffee run and a random non EN player with 3k para killed the same RG in 45secs…
So what can be EN be? In my pov, EN needs to advance a player’s progression drastically. Petrified drop rate is on the lower end, keep it low. Buff its quality instead of quantity. EN drops should feels like PTR drops or Oreks Dream of looting. EN should continue be worked in future to reach the ultimate looting mode. XP should be from GR… mats should be from EN. The group vs solo thing, its just a design philosophy of D3. Unfortunately theres no solution aside complete rework. You just have to manage your social circle. Once core circle is maintained, your efficiency sky rockets no matter how little you play… I mean anyone is welcomed to use my keys. If you dont wanna play, you can sit in EN…if you want to play I will sit…its rather flexible. Not sure how so many dislike the idea of grouping…