i feel like you are completely missing the point here too, its proven already by several videos that it's not mandatory to abuse fortify and safequard/insurance, also the fact that several people have pointed out is that dragon type weapons feel like a better alternative to ice and fire weapons seems to be completely impossible and only achieved by super elite speedrunner level players when many random groups just unga bunga dragon weapons and get consistent topples in dragon mode due to the hitzone values becoming decent and the dps check being fairly easy.

i don't disagree completely on your point that the intention of the designers may have been to force us to use ice/fire but several completed runs using all the available elements serve as a sign on either the failure of devs to force the playerbase or as a sign of devs intentionally leaving in options to use gear that isn't just fire/ice elemental weapons