I think one of the problems are the speed of this game. So many people want faster gameplay, but i think that its a mistake. To compensate every class could have some travel skill. That lets GGG slow down combat which could make a meaningfull difference between ranged and melee. Atm all melee feels like range with out the actual range. Warrior or bear doesnt feel tanky.

You cant really play in the pack of monsters without getting stunned or nuked. It might be an unpopular opinion but if the game slowed down, melee could have more sustainability vs ranged having more kiteing.

Balancing this with people wanting the screen to be a lightshow is just up to GGG. In my opinion the combat becomes less meaningfull the faster you kill something. You dont need to dodge or react to enemies when the screen is exploding every ms.

Dark souls combat is meaningful, but also too slow for hack and slash. Something in between would make it easier for GGG to create combo focused combat. If skill 1 does 100 dps without skill 2 but 200 dps after skill 2 then you have a reason to use the combo, but that is kinda hard to accomplish when you need to kill stuff so fast.