No one “lost their minds”. Instead, people were asking for clarification because it was described as a “rogue like” mechanic of all things. In fact, I made my own thread to point out why roguelike was not a great mechanic for a “hard mode raid”.
They later clarified how it works (explaining the death counter), and since then, no one has really complained about it. If anything, most of the raids I’ve been in, the hard mode reward is really underwhelming, and hardly makes it worth it, because as time goes on, more and more people get the patterns and the trinkets/enchants are more easily found. Arguably, the new repair bot is still a “chase item” because it’s BOP. AFAIK, all other craftable items are BoE.