I want more levels and loot, not this BS..
Removed @grayshirt, you definitely have a point about the naming and obtuse mechanics but complexity is a huge detriment too. New players see that gigantic thing and are simply overwhelmed. PoE is successful because the *rest* of the game is awesome.
I still prefer D2's talent trees with separate attributes. You can still make them massive with a billion possible paths but it's much less intimidating than a map/board, it's more intuitive and immersive. I have no idea why people scrapped talent trees, everything that came after it seems like more or less square wheels.
I feel like most discussion here breaks down because either its the casual player that wants to paly for maybe 3 hours a week that dont want anything to complicate it and on the opposite end you have the ppl that want to pour hours into it and for those the extra depth is really good. Chances are that the ppl that really dislike it wont see too much of it either and the optimization of the tree will most likely only be relevant for those that wanna tryhard because anything is viable to a certain degree. Just like how you can get to about lvl 90 playing any $%^&ty build u want if ur decent enough but getting further requires min maxing.
But POE already has a basic starter-system for newbie players. It's called D3.