I'd say that a handle limit as low as 32k is a questionable design decision, but maybe with the original scope of the game it made sense?
D:OS became much larger than the original design, and even then no one hit the handle limit in D:OS Classic until after the issue was identified and the limit increased (as much as it could be) in the Enhanced Edition. For D:OS Classic, I have seen 2 reports of this, both with play times of 550+ hours. It was only with changes in one of the EE updates that increased the usage of handles that the limit became reachable by a great deal of crafting/trading/looting, leaving the game running and checking trading periodically, or possibly mods (added crafting, regenerating NPC inventories more frequently, etc).
