Yes, random loot is fine for an rpg where you can repeatedly farm content. It makes no sense in a fixed, non respawning rpg.
I havent heard a convincing argument for random loot yet. I'm not sure why any player would prefer it at this point.
I don't think you will. I haven't heard any convincing arguments as to why carrot cake is better than chocolate and I don't think I ever will because I really don't like carrot cake.
I like the random loot. I like the mystery of what I might get on any given play through. I enjoy the fact that chance determines my rewards. It is also nice to know that on a given encounter I don't have to worry that the item is guaranteed to be useless for my party as the randomness means I can have the possibility of getting an item I desire. Now with a static placed loot, as you even pointed out, you know what to expect and so since you know what items you are going to get, well... why bother with that encounter?
Point is, this is a subjective issue, not an objective one. /shrug
Its not the same. BG had hundreds of unique magic items with background stories. The crafting is also not comparable at all. BG and Ultima VII allowed you to craft far more interesting equipment.
That isn't an argument against randomness, that is an itemization quality issue and you can tweak the templates for random gear to give more variations and types, even more flashy names. As for crafting, again... just an issue of adding more of such. A random system can provide for this as well.
It's cheaper and easier to use the random loot method they currently use, so I can understand why they continue to use it. Hopefully they will make enough money from this game to be able to consider slightly more time intensive, but superior loot distribution in future games.
You know why they use it for a fact? Is it simply money or do they prefer it for other reasons? This system has its problems, but random systems in my opinion tend to fail because not enough attention gets put into the template algorithms. If you put a lot of attention into that, you can have all kinds of amazing and interesting gear in a random system.
So it appears that most of your objections to the system are things that really aren't specifically an issue with randomization, as much as it is the problem of the results of randomization being too generic, which as I said could be solved.
