I agree with OP. This game has its moments but the entire loot system is hopelessly bad. However I don't think fix-seed is the solution. I think allowing save-scamming is already the best compromise there is.
Right now the game feels like it has a weird combination of Diablo-clone itemization and loot, along with a Baldur's Gate approach of trying to make each enemy encounter unique and memorable.
Diablo works because the entire game is focused on getting loot, it's like a giant slot machine where player gamble with their time investment (the so-called farming). Now it would be unimaginable to make the player only able to kill Pindleskin or Bhaal ONCE per playthrough, and you're force to accept the loot with not even an option to trade it away.
Baldur's gate also works because some of the most famous enemies are tied with their loot drop, Kangaxx the Demi-lich has the Ring of Gaxx, Lord Firkraag has the Casomyr +5, Drizzit has his dual scimitars, their loot is part of their unique identity. "Kill the legendary dragon and get that holy sword" not "kill the dragon and get two scrolls and maybe a crossbow with +1 intelligence" The itemization also emphasizes their uniqueness rather than game balance. Staff of Magi, Celestial Fury are all OP as fuck, but nobody's complaining because Baldur's Gate is a role-playing power fantasy, the players are suppose to feel like the half-god he is wielding power to stop time and conjure meteors. Those enemies are also very powerful in their own way, so the question to the player is always "how do I kill that guy" not "I wonder what would I get for killing that guy?"
These games are masterpieces because their gameplay elements are designed with a clear focus and work together. Right now DOS feels like it doesn't know what it wants to be and just throw a bunch of (sometimes incompatible) elements in the pot, Diablo-esque color graded itemization and random loot, Baldur's gate type of story and role-playing, Elder-scrolls type of dialogue tree design where every random person have the same dialogue making them walking info dumps, and environment manipulation from Magicka.
The randomized loot design off-load the responsibility of balancing the game progression to a random number generator, it allows for easier mass production of extra content and is a cheap way to achieve reasonable replay value. And it also makes everything completely generic and have next to zero personality, no matter how much joke you managed to squeeze in, see Skyrim and its 200 draugr caves for the perfect example. The problem is, Skyrim adopted such a system out of necessity, because it needs a formula to generate new content on its own, I don't know what excuse does DOS have.
The current save-scamming approach, I suspect, is just a compromise to make this mess work, and it sorta did, at least for the current beta. Like "we can't be bothered to tailor rewards to your own preference or the enemies' own characteristics, but you're welcome to try reloading to get a semi-reasonable reward for yourself." If you're gonna make it fix seed, might as well just make it fixed result and a pre-determined progression route.
