Sockets and Links need to change! (The main reason I can't get my friends and family into the game)

I make some serious arguments here, this is not (just) complaining. Sockets colors are tedious. GGG knows it and are changing it in the second game for a reason. Not being able to play a cool build idea despite having spent the time to get all the gear sucks. Why despite having spent the time to get an exciting drop do I now have to grind out literal thousands of chromatic orbs to use a cheesy bench craft strat new players aren't even going to know is possible in order to get the 6 off colors I need. Let me decide what gems are appropriate for my gear instead of an attribute arbitrarily deciding for me. (Don't keep in a system that discouraged creativity.) (White sockets solve a problem that doesn't need to exist.)
The progression of getting your 6-links during league start is meaningful, the cost in order to 6-link your gear upgrades later on feels more like it is devaluing the new gear you get after your first 6 link. Scale the number of sockets and Links that drop on gear with the level of your highest character on a league so it still has a natural progression during league start. This would also mean that while leveling alts gear that drops would actually be meaningful because them now coming fully socketed and linked means they might actually be worth equipping when compared to your leveling uniques.
I strongly believe changes like this can and should be implemented in order to allow players to focus their time and attention on setting more meaningful goals than simply getting the baseline necessities to even try to attempt a new creative build idea.
(People who don't have a lot of time to play games don't want to spend what little time they have linking and socketing their gear. These problems also disproportionately affect smaller populations such as at the end of league, less popular leagues, console, hard ore, etc...) Tedious time wasting system that turns frustration to apathy and reduces player count. It's bad for everyone. Please make an immediate short term change such as drastically lowering cost of bench crafts and begin working on a solution. 🙏

Have you heard POE 2?

Did you read this post where I specifically mentioned poe 2? Not having a horrifically designed system in a sequel is not a reason to leave it in the state it's in right now in the first game. I'm not playing poe 2 right now. I'm playing poe 1 and am asking for positive change in the game I am enjoying right now rather than the one I might be enjoying at some indeterminate point in the future.

There are way they will change POE 1 that way to angry most of the existing customers, so that they made Poe 2 as well as they are two separate games.