Did you not play 3.x? Players had orders of magnitude more choice than 5e & it mattered more. Meanwhile magic items with bonus type conflicts & slot conflicts have the gm the same before even getting to all of the extra numerical dials like asf acp crit range crit multiplier & so on.The days when magic items were the DM's tools to balance the game.were days when player choices didn't matter or didn't exist because scores between 10-15 didn't do anything and 90% of the game options didn't exist.
That's the core issue: You can't have a D&D style game be:
Simplicity comes at the cost of player choice or DM restriction.
- Simple
- Have player choice matter
- Have no game balance assumptions for the DM
.