hawkeyefan
Legend
Why do you need rules to implement goals and motivation? D&D has never really had that and in my experience has never needed it. Yes, in some editions we had the magic item bonus hamster wheel where they codified the "you need a +X weapon by level y" but other than that I don't see any way the rules can provide goals.
XP for gold.
That's a goal provided by rules. The reward system of any game tells us what the game is meant to be about. Or it should tell us that, at least.
Oh, I think one criticism really is that simple. There’s often many other criticisms layered on top though.
I think a better way to look at it is not that folks are criticizing the game for handling different parts of the game differently. It's more about handling one area of the game with a very structured and understandable manner that has binding consequences, and then handling another in an unstructured, subject-to-change manner that may or may not have binding consequences.