What makes the item system so bad?

[Treesh]

I like the idea of having the type of elemental damage be meaningful again, but this isn't necessary to balance things. Actually, having resists matter would make items more interesting. In D2 the best builds had multiple damage types (or a single rarely resisted type, *cough* magic damage, *cough* blessed hammer) via skills or weapon swaps. That seems totally missing from D3, either because there are no significant one element resists on enemies, or because people don't know what they are.

I'm still VERY glad they got rid of immunities though, which was the real reason you needed multiple damage types in D2.  Highly resistant wasn't really a concern; you could still whittle down the critters if you so chose. Immunity meant you either had to park the critters (which was something I didn't do) or you ran around with multiple types.

There are still resistances on enemies in D3, but since most of the critters aren't physical resist and most classes rely more on physical damage than elemental damage, it's not as noticeable. I definitely notice the resists when I'm playing my wizard so they are there and some of them are fairly significant, even on just nightmare difficulty.