and the obvious solution is to prevent those things from appearing on those items
Yeah, let's just remove features that worked before, instead of fixing the problem. I guess we can also remove traps from the game completely too, as they're completely harmless.
Elemental properties on weapons were always a big part of RPGs, meant to add some other source of damage to your main one, and they usually also enabled some specific builds centered around them and made the itemization overall less boring. I mean isn't it always cool when you find an enchanted weapon that deals some kind of magical damage? Why remove it?
a few things
what "features that worked before" are you referring to? before what?
elemental damage on weapons works better in other RPGs with different combat systems. in this game, it's less effective because of how armor works, so it'd probably be better to change how runes affect weapons, if something actually needed to be changed. that being said, i don't know where you got anything about elemental damage in my post, since those can at least mesh (using a 2 handed weapon that does air damage can interact with a wet target, for example). i was talking about stats on weapons, like +1 scoundrel on a piece of intelligence armor, which will almost never be of any use other than for niche hybrid builds
on the subject of traps, i think they just haven't been appropriately tweaked; give them more effects, make them do more damage
