Atlas reset is a complete disaster, needs fixing

Keeping in mind that I've only just learned this mechanic during the week and may not be understanding all the details, this is by far the worst thing I have come across in the game. In fact it's really the only thing i've come across in the game that makes no sense, has little to no purpose and is completely unintuitive and unnecessary. It's like accidentally vaaling your whole game without any possible upside. If someone can explain why I am wrong about this needing to be change I will gladly be enlightened.

My current experience is playing ruthless in standard at the end of the league (in standard, not crucible), and getting my completion to about 100/115, using all the recourses I have, including high-level maps. New league hits, I now have lost the majority of my atlas passives. Some people in chat and on the forum have been nice enough to inform me that I can get them back if I run a T16 legacy map that holds the conditions that would give a bonus under normal circumstances. I see no way to possibly know this niche mechanic without getting help from someone who knows it or reading the forum.

Next, I know the mechanic, but there is no way of knowing to need to be prepared for it. I ran most of my high level maps a few nights before the change over for map completion, which is the correct thing to do unless you are aware of this niche mechanic and keeping track of the league dates for leagues you are not even playing in as a standard league player. Fortunately, I had one T14 map remaining and with my limited currency I alch/vaal it. Surprise!!! I hit the reverse luck and +1 my map into a non-legacy version, that can not be used to retrieve my atlas. What is this madness. I've since managed to repeat this process on one of 2 T12 maps and dodge the reverse vaal upgrade to get my completion back upto T11. I'm now missing only about 20 maps, but that's still 20 map bases, alch/vaal, or kirac missions that need to be found, to get back to where I was, because I didn't know of this obscure game mechanic that has seemingly very little purpose. Keep in mind if I didn't have these maps by chance I could of lost the whole atlas. If I can trade a legacy map I may be able to get the rest, but ruthless standard is very nearly SSF currently. Which further highlights, someone playing SSF can inadvertently brick their entire atlas because of this, if they are unaware they have to keep track of when leagues end and horde legacy maps accordingly.

On the flipside, is it possible to get full map completion without ever completing maps just by running a t16 legacy map? This is not my situation so I don't know how the mechanic works, but it would completely nullify any reason to complete maps in the first place if someone can get full completion from their buddy passing over a legacy map. I dropped a T16 off the T15 map I reverse upgraded and I'm wondering if now the correct thing to do is wait for it to become a legacy map and then run to retrieve the rest of the atlas. Surely this is not how the mechanic works?

I can see no reason for this to exist. Perhaps in the old quartered atlas with watchstones someone might want to de-level their atlas, but even then its a very cheesy unintuitive mechanic that has a game breaking problem for anyone who doesn't know about it. Why take the points away at all? Just have a full respec option as with the skill tree. Or if it is completely necessary, have it work off something way more accessible than legacy maps. There is nothing else in the game that operates like this that I'm aware of. It is the kind of unthought through nonsense that exists in most other games, but not POE.

The reset is really pointless for standard but I guess we all got simply used to do the old T16 thing so (almost) no one is mad anymore.

Yes, I largely play league so I wasn't foot stomping at the time, but I do see a lot of posts/videos about it being a problem. It feels like a quick fix that was added last minute before a patch and never revisited. I can understand this might not be the most relevant problem in the game with people largely playing league, but to have a permanent game mode that removes progression for no reason and has a cheesable "catch up" mechanic that flat out doesn't work unless you are across patch notes from years ago and dates of a child/sub league is bizarre. Especially when this game contains so many well thought through mechanics that don't ever run into problems of this magnitude. Please fix GGG, if not for me, for the next people that will run into it, or just the love of the game that is a masterpiece and deserves better.

This has been an issue ever since they introduced the atlas passive tree. You aren't alone in your frustrations.

It seems like something that GGG is either unwilling, or unable to fix. Similar to the never ending map conversion debacle

I've always thought it was strange, because they DO offer you the "choice" to respec your entire standard character passive tree...and yet you don't have the same choice for your atlas? But perhaps that is because the atlas completion bonuses are tied to that specific league map setup and there is simply no way to keep it, when the entire atlas is changed and shuffled from league to league, even in standard.

I think you are right, the reason for this implementation probably relates to the shuffling of the maps since unique maps and pinnacle content rewards remain, which is also confusing. It is likely more complex than the skill tree, but what has been implemented is not a solution and doesn't come close to the standards that have been reached in the rest of the game.

The wiki refers to it as a "catch up" mechanic, that terminology might not come from GGG, but it does describe what they have implemented. Giving completion for content that hasn't be encountered undermines the whole process of running maps which is a large portion of the game. Removing progress that has been completed erodes players confidence that progressing is meaningful. Having a mechanic that is readily available in one league and is very difficult or in some cases impossible to use in other leagues adds unnecessary inconsistency across the game. There doesn't seem to be any upside to any of this. The only slight positive is that maybe it is better than forcing players to rerun the atlas in full every time there is a change. I would argue at the cost of all the above it might not even be an improvement. How ever difficult this might be to fix it needs major improvement, I can't imagine that GGG aren't able to think up suitable solution given what they have been able to achieve with the rest of the game.