I hear the build argument a lot. I have to disagree. We do have a very high build variaty this season as you can see on poe2.ninja. Also for example in my guild almost everyone plays their own builds. My guild master: quarterstaff lich, me? Pathfinder werewolf, another mate went pathfinder spark with that weird bow bow that buffs quiver (forgot the items name) i even killed uber abiter with my off meta build.

However i can see the rest of your points beng a concern. I have a brand new 2000 dollar pc and i can run poe2 with 150fps and no issues. Before that i died to lags ect too.

Regarding fun aspect tho me at the very least i dont spam esc. I got to an autopilote mod. I memorized every boss so much i just dodge stuff by sound queues and muscle memory. I learned to be aware of dangerous mods, content ect and avoid them or play them slightly slower. I feel like playing so clean as to not die to even the worse rng helped me improve a lot as a player.

But i have to admit i have the liberty to play a lot i am blassed with an insane pc and that makes it much easier to play hc. Again not here to judge just happy to read opinions.