Blizzard gain a flash of insight?

[Jaffa Tamarin]

The difference is, in Diablo and Diablo 2 you could "win" with sub optimal builds. In Diablo 3 you can farm Act4 hell, Act 1 inferno with sub optimal builds. Or you can cookie cutter yourself and use the AH or farm endlessly until you pass the gear checks to win. But you can't do a full clear single pass with a sub optimal build and still get to the end.

Tell yourself that you have "won" when you have finished hell difficulty, and you have a much greater variety of interesting builds available. Inferno is clearly designed not to be played in the same way as normal-nightmare-hell. The way I see it, the game is normal-nightmare-hell. Inferno is the end-game. I never bothered with the item-farming, level-grinding end-game of Diablo 2, and I don't see playing the inferno end-game as being a necessary part of the Diablo 3 experience. Certainly not with every character.

Blizzard even helpfully provides a "you have now beaten Diablo 3" (I think those are the exact words) game over screen after you finish with hell.

I will probably push one character through inferno using the GAH, and the rest of my characters will be one-pass full-clear no-trading and finish at the end of hell, just as I used to do in Diablo 2.

(Also, this is my first post here, so hello to everyone at the LL.)