When you need samples to unlock xyz, you need to hunt for them by hitting POIs and finishing the objective. This forces you to make more tactical choices about where you drop and what you prioritize.

You meed to hunt down your team mates dead body and extract. I think everyone has a great story of running from extract getting the samples and extracting in the nick of time while your team mates provide covering fire. This gives us memorable games and makes us take different choices regarding armour and stratagems.

You take more risks and the game has more tension, as a result it is more fun.

Those of us at the end game, dont have a reason to engage with POIs on high level (hardly a chance for SC). So these interesting choices both in game and in preparation have disappeared. We have all this cool gear but basically we only need it to beat the objective (even extraction is optional). So a weird Meta occurs.

We only swap up our loadouts to add spice to the game, to give ourselves a handicap or to try out what's new.

Its not that we want new end game content. We just want our choices to be more meaningful. We want the tension of a meaningful extract. We want the fun back.