PoE1 by design has a barter economy. Thats what gives values to chaos. Chaos has intrinsic value, it can be used to craft/make items. And thus, it holds value on that notion alone. it was set up that way on purpose.
And just to clarify, poe2 gold is not tradable, and does not allow you to buy things with it. its an npc currency used to trade only with npcs for their services. they could change it to “ride tickets to ride the rides” and it would be the same thing.
As for the topic at hand. I think unironically LE needs some on kill explosions. this will slightly increase clear speed(I dont think LE has density like PoE where getting chain on kill effects will break the game) but what the onkill effects do is add that flair. Herald of Ice mathematically is pretty shit imo. but people run it all the time, why? cause even if its not really adding that much, it feels good to kill a pack and see fireworks go off.
This is hoaky to some, and key to others. They could make it an mtx, similar to poes “finisher” mtx, where it just plays a graphic that has no gameplay effect when you kill an enemy. That way its opt in. But I love shit like that myself. it adds weight to killing packs.
Nothing feels better then hitting a MASSIVE void cleave, that pops up 20k crits and all the enemy evaporate. Big MEATY hit, with BIG damage and big effect? Great gameplay feel.
Lightning smite dropping my frames to 0? also pretty good gameplay feel other then my rig exploding. Why? its colorful, bright, and impactful. Feels awesome as hell.
slapping an enemy with vengence rive or multstrike? snooze. if you could atleast make the enemies explode into fireworks on death, you might feel cool while playing those skills.
I also think another thing PoE has for gameplay feel is mtx. Skill mtx plays a huge part in skills feeling cool or interesting or vibing with the player. Boring normal SRS? its okay… BLOOD RAVEN SRS WITH PALADIN SMITE FINSHER? and cool ass dark edgy armor mtx? suddenly I feel like an epic dark character summoning my ravens to attack my foes etc.
like the samurai mtx in LE makes me feel more cool when i play melee lol. Ive played alot more melee since ive gotten it rofl.