For me this just indicates that there isn't enough valid uses for gold in 5e. Any suggestions that I've heard to remedy this (that doesn't take this issue head-on) are anecdotal at best.
Kinda.
There aren't any uses for gold for optimizing in 5e. So if you only play D&D for combat then, no, there aren't a lot of uses for gold. Because once those purchases exist, they become mandatory.
This is a big change from 3e/4e where you got tonnes of gold but also had tonnes of magic items you had to buy in order to maintain the expected power level of characters. Characters effectively didn't *really* have any money, since the vast majority of gold went to purchasing gear; no one would spend money to buy a castle or a sailing ship as that meant not having a +4 belt or a +3 weapon (unless the DM was implementing house rules, such as not having magic for sale). Adventuring was a zero-profit business until you had all your slots filled and the price of upgrading items reached such ridiculous levels that your spare change was more money that a commoner saw in their lifetime and could be spent on frivolous things.
If you stripped out the assumed magic item purchases from 3e/4e and switched to an inherent bonus system there was just as little to spend money on.
I actually figured it out once, for a Pathfinder campaign. I removed 80% of the Wealth By Level and implemented an Inherent Bonuses point system. At level 10, the leftover money (20% WBL) they gained that level was 3,000 gp, and the characters each had something close to 13,000 gp, with the entire party having over 50k. Otherwise known as enough money for dozen commoners to live on a century.
Had they wanted, they could hire an army of 5,000 people, pay them 9 gold (over three-month's wages) and had them zerg rush the Big Bad.
And, again, that's just 20% of the expected money.
In 3.5e/Pathfinder, a good quality inn and meals costs 2.5 gp per day. An adult human in a D&D setting live for 15,000 days barring accident. So once you have 40,000 you can just retire and live in a *good* inn for life. Think 4-star all-inclusive resort. A 3e adventurer can hit that mark halfway through level 9. If they're willing to accept retirement at a Common quality inn, they can retire as low as 6th level. 4e only slightly delays the retirement age to 7th and 10th level.
Unless there's end-of-the-world type stakes, there's no reason to keep adventuring in those systems.