But they seem to be moving more towards multiplayer, which is coming at the cost of single-player quality-of-life stuff. It'd be one thing if it was a pure co-op game, but shared inventory and other such things won't work very well with the new competitive questing angle where you may not WANT to assist your fellow players.
How about making shared inventory optional?
For backstabbing multiplayer - make an option for separate inventory, for nice & cuddly multiplayer and singleplayer - shared?
Or make it another way - an option to share certain non-combat skills across the party, that way there's no need for larger part of item micromanagement.