the way items worked in d2.. was nothing short of perfect. starting from scratch in d2 was fun, mfing is also fun. seeing a bunch of items drop and identifing items hoping for good stats. in my opinion items played a huge role in the fun factor in d2. the huge diversity of stats that can spawn on an item and the many different character builds make it fun to play. that and pvp... its going to be hard to top.
something tells me d3 won't be half as good as d2. especially the pvp system, since the developers at blizzard are saying how they want to make it so two people must mutually agree to a duel before you can go hostile, according to them to prevent griefers. that pisses me off. nking is a lot of fun, and laughing at other peoples expense just never gets old.