Your endgame loop in this game is:
for Exalts:
spam Trove + Coast - wait for imprint proc - gamba with Rune of Havoc / Removal / Glyph of Chaos - repeat. You have no agency and no goal, you just repeat the gamba ad infinitum.
for Uniques:
Gauntlet of Strife gamba - Nemesis gamba - Turtle gamba - repeat.
After going through the above, then get screwed at sanctum and repeat from 0.
In PoE2, you have a clear goal: you get your base + Essence + Omen, you make the gear you want. EZ.
Let’s look at the steps of getting a usable Exalt and the general >1 LP gameplay loop.
My guide on how to high level craft also functions as my negative review for the game. 
Reroll for Rune modifiers at the CoF until your hands go numb.
Hope to drop a couple Runes of Havoc.
Spend days~weeks to get a double T7 Exalt drop.
Try to make it imprintable: you want a 1o/77.
Your Runes of Havoc will drop your FP by 20 each, and your Runes of Removal will hit the wrong target.
Wait for another double T7 Exalt drop.
Repeat 20 times until you have an imprintable Exalt.
Unfortunately, even at 1k+ Corruption you’re not getting any more 2 T7 drops.
Congratulations, it only took you like a month of playing 15h daily.
Wait days~weeks until your first imprint proc due to how bad the proc rates are.
Keep improving your FP by replacing your imprint with the new one.
Repeat 3 times. Your imprint is now 50 FP.
Several weeks of spamming Trove later: Good, your first proc!
Gamba with Rune of Havoc to make your prefixes T7 and get a 77/xx.
Your Runes of Havoc will drop your FP by 20 each.
Wait until the next imprint proc. Repeat 10 times.
A couple dozen attempts later, you now have a 77/xx.
You’re now 2 months at 15h/d in.
The imprint drop modifiers are random, so you try to fix the suffixes with Glyphs of Chaos and reroll them into random modifiers.
Repeat 20 times until you now have a 77/xx with usable suffixes.
Congratulations, you now have a slammable/usable Exalt.
Spend days getting relevant Uniques with bad modifier rolls. Repeat 20 times.
Gamba at Gauntlet of Strife. Get 2 with usable rolls.
Gamba the 2 at Nemesis. They all get Legendary-d with a bad modifier.
Repeat from 0.
After several weeks, you now have 3 with 1 LP.
Gamba them at Turtle. Watch him turn them to 0 LP.
Gamba them at Nemesis again. Watch them become Legendary-d with a bad modifier.
Repeat from 0.
Finally after many weeks, you have one with usable modifier rolls and 2~3 LP.
Time to bring it the Exalt and Unique to the Eternity Cache.
This is the step where you get rewarded for your grind and hard work, right?
Wrong, sucker.
You WILL hit the “33%” for the one bad affix from 4 every single time.
Repeat from 0.
Now do this 11 times, because that’s how many item slots you have.
Also farm Blessings and Idols for several weeks. Yay, more gamba!
In PoE2, you farm your base, Essence and Omens for like 2~3 days and then make your desired item.
I did bring it into feedback + suggestions, and it is clearly by design.
But when I read the forum post about the game “unfortunately being less profitable than expected”:
Yea I’m not surprised people quit.
There are only 2 possible consequences for anti-player mechanics:
- people find ways to avoid them (MG)
- people quit => low player retention
The early game, campaign, early Monolith (I’d say 300c, 1 LP Legendaries) excited me enough to play for 15h a day and recommend the game without hesitation to many people:
- Offline mode
- interesting story
- Music + artstyle
- classes clearly made with a lot of love and care
- smooth gameplay
- the creativity of the skill specialisation system
- alt-friendly dungeon skips
- integrated loot filters
- crafting materials and menu being accessible from anywhere
Even getting Exalts with 1 wanted T7 and usable 1 LPs was reasonable.
The disaster that is >1 LP crafting is single-handedly making me quit though.
You can’t just stack 20 gamba systems on top of each other, each forcing you to restart from 0 when they brick to artificially pad gametime, and call it content.
Rune gamba, FP gamba, Nemesis gamba, Gauntlet of Strife gamba, Turtle gamba, Imprint gamba, Prophecy gamba, Blessing gamba, Idol gamba, aren’t crafting, rewarding or fun.
Crafting is crafting, rewarding and fun.
EDIT:
Just today they made a forum post about how they’d “like to improve MTX and are looking for ideas”.
A post like that when there are so many glaring gameplay issues and the Discord server is barren thanks to low player retention seems so stubborn and tone deaf to me, it’s like they’re living on another planet.