Hello:
Although it is probably not ideal to start this way, a fair warning: I type for a living and this may get long.

I decided to get back to Diablo II after possibly years of hesitation because I missed the mix of simplicity and complexity the game has.
The first experience I had with it was in 2000, played offline, and it lasted about a year.
I got Internet for the first time in 2001, and in 2004 I purchased the Lord of Destruction expansion. That time it was a lot more fun, and it lasted until changes in my Internet service provider and in my PC (about in mid 2008) sparked my interest in more modern games (Call of Duty type of stuff). By the time I got bored of those, and that happened rather fast, my playable accounts were gone, and as it turned out, I ended up missing patch 1.13 by about four months, if that.
Fast forward to 2015, after quite a few years on and off with the Mass Effect series, including three with multiplayer, I found a mod to play Diablo (one) in HD, which inevitably led to my wanting to get back to Diablo II multiplayer.

I have read of this forum back in about 2005, but had never tried it before. As a matter of fact, I had never participated forums too much (not a technologically adept person myself, I have had the same discman for 16 years, yes a discman).
The experience I have had so far has been very rewarding. In about two months I have been able not only to make characters similar to the ones I had (my tastes are rather inexpensive by most people's standards here), but also to rebuild my collections.
In that regard, and maybe that is part of the reason why I type this (I am winging it as I go really), I want to express my gratitude to the people I have dealt with so far. In particular, thanks to BigBenBenn, Steambot and Obstacle1 for their good disposition when it comes to the occasionally weird stuff I ask for, thanks to bit and Also for the leveling jobs, and thanks to all those that have bought stuff from me already, with special mentions to todash_darkness, QueeF and toddzi11a. I will also add that getting the items for my characters has become as fun as making the characters themselves (except the leveling part, which I am still not a big fan of).

Back to the game, one of my goals will eventually be to get more Uber Tristrams done than in my previous Diablo II tour (I have done 27 as of today, and if I recall correctly, I had done about 68 between the moment patch 1.11 came out and the time I stopped playing).
Tokens, and most specially the absence of Iron Maiden casted from Oblivion Knights, something I assume most people take for granted, are still something new to me, and being able to take a melee character through chaos is still a very gratifying experience.
Being a fairly compulsive fellow, I like to collect stuff, and this game is no exception. So far, I have collected all 32 sets (the names paramed931 and stimpy6298 come to mind, appreciate their help there), all 24 runewords that can be made in a Berserker Axe (they just look nice ordered alphabetically in their respective mules) and all 29 ladder-only uniques (big thanks here to jamex, who supplied that elusive Executioner's Justice, a perfect one at that). In this subject as well, I took my time to upgrade three dozen Arreat Faces on ladder to get what was my unicorn item back in the day, the 504/6: while I only got one out of the bunch, I have kept the 25 that got defenses of over 400, and 22 of them will remain in a specially-made mule I already leveled in NL, which in the end will be another of my collections. A side note here, about three weeks after doing this, I was able to buy a second 504/6 directly on NL (thanks to brandoncardoni).

As for the future, I never plan ahead too much, living in Argentina practically precludes that, but here we say "¿quién te quita lo bailado?" (translating this one would take some time, so I leave it at that). I think I will eventually collect all uniques, but will work them in sections: I am at 17/27 for class-specific ones so far.

Well, this is what I could come up with so far. One final "thank you" to this community as a whole (an apology for the redundance, but I am a grateful person, specially when it comes to hobbies).
And if for some reason you read this whole thing (and you are not me), thanks and congratulations on your endurance