Hardcore Casual Dad Gamer PoE2, Feedback/Review

That's my first post so please be gentle.

I am a hardcore casual dad gamer in my mid-thirties.
Video games have been my hobby my whole life, and I started to play ARPGs with Diablo 2, and since then, I have fallen in love with the genre.
I think I have played every popular and known ARPG up until today, and I have to preface this by saying: PoE2 is the best ARPG I have ever played.

Graphics, sound, atmosphere, systems, classes, combat, and general feeling are all the best in class.

PoE2, in comparison to PoE1, also managed for the first time to make it feel like I am fully able to grasp what makes my build work, from items to passives and skills. For PoE1, especially the passive tree felt like: "Follow the guide, no experimentation" because it was also way more difficult to just try things out.
PoE2 has the perfect balance, in my opinion; I can quickly respec a cluster, run a map or two, see how it feels, and adjust my playstyle—absolutely fantastic.
It feels like I am fully in control of my character, and every time I experiment more, I understand my character more. This is what always pushed me away in the end from PoE1; honestly, it was too complex and incredibly difficult if you didn't stay on top of every mechanic in the game.

Of course, in comparison to D4, where there basically is no real choice, it's just equip an item with green text and use the skill that the item empowers. D4 is boring; it feels and looks good but has no depth, and there is no meaning. For what do I make my character stronger? There is no measuring stick, and endgame bosses are meaningless loot piñatas long before you min/max your character.

Overall, there are too many good things to enumerate about PoE2, and I watched the reviews of Kripp, DM, and others and mostly agree with their take, and GGG has already smoothed out/are going to some of the rough edges.

But one thing that I haven't explicitly heard is this:
I am currently at Tier 10+ maps, so still progressing, but I think the pinnacle content is gatekept too much.
Let's take Delirium (Simulacrum) for example. I have played 80 hours up until this point, and I have 8 Splinterns; one Simulacrum is right now around 200 ex.
200 ex is around 3-4x the value of my current character, and I am melting other bosses with my build already (Spark Stormweaver).
If I ever reach this point of farming up one entry for one of the bosses, there is no way on earth I will go in there without watching hours of YouTube videos learning the mechanics before I play it because the price is just too high.
Like, if I die, I lose 200 ex? What the heck? I am never going to do this. This also wasn't necessary up until this point, I learned & progressed the game by playing it.


I know for many PoE1 players this is how things always were, and I am not against making endgame content difficult both in terms of gameplay and entry - but the price/value is in no fair relation here.

I loved the campaign; bosses are difficult, and there is no better feeling than knowing you have a character that is theoretically able to beat a boss; you just need to learn the mechanics and play well (Souls-like). In PoE, there is always an alternative: just make your character so beefy that no boss is a problem.
But what I am trying to say is that I can't learn a boss and the mechanics myself if one try costs me 200 ex.
I don't know the solution to this, but what I am trying to say is that this makes me sad. Not being able to learn and progress through pinnacle content myself and rather study everything on the internet to theoretically learn about it compared to just playing the game. This is such an awesome game already, but this seems like too much of a cliff in content gatekeeping; the price is too high.

Maybe this is a non-issue, and default running through T15+ maps gives you so much currency that the entry is "cheap".
If that is the case, disregard what I wrote, lol.
But if not, and someone from GGG reads this: make it so everyone who wants to learn the game can progress through all the content of the game by themselves without reading/watching guides. There is no better feeling in life than learning how to overcome a challenge by yourself (besides dropping a Div from a white chest).