This is why we have the “not so popular” realm.
I advice casual players with ambitions to try out eternal (if the devs would finally stop scraping loot over there). In a few weeks there will be a lot of great VoH gear in circulation for trade. New characters dont ever have to start from scratch: materials & gold are no problem. Feel free to join the seasonal realm to get a taste of the mechanics/story or to complete the journey. Keep in mind that you are not forced to do anything and can choose accordingly.
What every player needs to understand is that not all content can be tailored to them and that the game wants to grow, which is difficult when systems are forbidden to become meaningful. There have already been plenty of changes solely for casual players, and dont worry, they will continue with that. But not every progression system should end earlier because of dad. Enjoy it or ignore it with the time you have. Hot take: in some cases, new stuff just needs more than 2 weeks of time for players to see why it is set up the way it is (e.g. high material cost for gems).
Note that so far the developers have been pretty consistent in taking casual players into account, to the point where I would argue it has hurt Diablo 4. We are able to target farm our stash purple in a month. Rarity became a joke with few exceptions. Leveling and progression are so fast that the repetition is unhealthy for a player’s motivation in the long run.
But with each new Season it is the same on Reddit and the official forums. The big evil is made out to be the gear farming process in one way or another. The player mindset is so far off that some whiners even claim they are the sole reason for good changes in Diablo 4. Grand! The attention is quickly filled by many other “gamers” who fail to realize that they actually dont want to play the genre. Seriously, the developers would do good in identifiying these kind and ignore them. Instead they should try to find a balance for casuals and ARPG lovers. I dont see that at the moment.
This rant could get so (1) many (2) more paragraphs but I will end it here. I lost most of the people who need to read this after the first one anyway.