Shiny Prizes

[Quark]

Once you add uniques or super-special items to the game that are clearly the best, the entire game devolves into getting those particular items. Once you do, your character is then "perfect" and the incentive to play it lessens greatly. This made a little more sense in the Diablo II world, where you could "perfect" your character but still have a lot of playtime to get them to level 99. I still thought it was poor implementation back then, though, and advised Blizzard against it to no avail. What keeps people playing in the end is trying to get that extra 0.5% of gear power...

I agree with this point, but not the math that is leading to the current situation. Rares get like 4-5 random affixes, Legendary/Set get like 2 set in stone (w/ random numbers) and 2-3 random. For a rare to be good, you need to get at least 3 mods that are good. For a Legendary to be better than a rare, then, you need at least 4 mods that are good (including the innate) or a higher level advantage.

Here's where it breaks down: we see tons of rares, so the randomness eventually works in your favor. I haven't seen a legendary yet. How long till I find a single decent one? We're being hit by low percentage twice: once for it being legendary, and once for it being good.