I’d be fine with the less of Azerite armor, and make a new Artifact-like menu for the necklace to be able to “unlock” traits and things. You could even leave the head/chest/shoulders as just pure primary stat sticks, and let us empower it via the necklace.
I just hate, hate, HATE the current Azerite system and traits with a burning passion. It is both incredibly boring and annoying to play the RNG game for items that are intentionally and knowingly going straight to the trash.