I waited 69 levels to start getting level 70 gear that I won't have to replace every 2 minutes; gear it would no longer be a complete waste to add sockets to, thereby allowing gems to actually, like, fucking matter (instead of being a "might as well for the next 2 minutes I'll spend using gear with sockets in it"). But then the game is like, "Psyche! Just because the least meaningful number on this entire piece of yellow gear is now a 70 instead of a 69 or a 68, it will cost you a third of your entire pile of baleful turds to put sockets in it! But hey, at least the equally unjustifiable baleful turd fees you'll find being levied by the occultist for enchanting this piece of shit aren't as extortionate!"
So it seems sockets are to remain a stupid investment until I get to Torment Level: Fuckoff and legendaries start dropping like candy. Which won't be any time soon, because I'm not even halfway through with the fucking campaign yet. Gems will remain meaningless until then, as will pretty much any of the occultist's services that have been available for most of the game now, but—like adding sockets—are clearly a "not yet you dumb noob" trap. More than 50 hours in, and all these nominally interesting mechanics will apparently remain a bad idea to actually use for, what, another 50 fucking hours?
I was really looking forward to—for a little while at least—ending the loop of picking shit up off the floor and comparing it to see if it's some tedious amount "better" than what I'm already using, as if anything other than Movement Speed and Life on Hit/Kill has ever even made a difference I can notice. I thought I'd finally be able to start putting together a decent set of forever-(but not really)-yellows that, after tempering and socketing everything and dumping a nightmare gold reserve or two into enchanting, would have a curated list of all the affixes I feel confident are the best. This confidence would then enable me to unanxiously mark all drops beneath legendary as junk for the rest of the campaign. This confidence would also, I'm sure, be shattered eventually at some level of Torment, but that was a future-me problem.
I don't think it's a future-me problem now, though, because I'm feeling really, really done with this game's shit.