Learning curve most definitely affects players trying to get the most out of their characters. PoE’s crafting system is insanely complex, and I daresay needlessly so. A small part of that is because of the limitations imposed by having to use the vendor for conversion of some items (vendor recipes are a thing there) and some really nutty orb/chance > imprint > orb/exalt > imprint (if good) or retrieve imprint, re-imprint to backup item and try again scenario. PoE’s crafting is anything but intuitive compared to any crafting system I’ve ever seen. It’s got depth, but at the expense of a very high learning curve.
No, not really. Layered RNG has been added, yes, but most of what made D3v utter suckage was at least improved with RoS. Itemization is still “meh”, but sadly the ship has sailed on that one so Loot 2.0 is what’s here to stay.
RoS’ issues are nothing like D3v’s issues.