The hotbar feels very much like Larian is saying "well, we don't know how to make a UI - maybe you can figure it out". Admittedly, it might be a bit because people have been talking about mods so much lately, but it really feels like they just gave up, made a big empty space and said "it's customizable!" <jazz hands>. So, instead of having basic actions, class features, spells, and activatable equipment organized in a sensible and consistent fashion (which, yet again, Solasta shows it can be done effectively), we have this big bar of stuff that feels like it's never quite right, requires constant maintenance, and leads to lots of mis-clicks.
Want it organized? Do it yourself. Want it to stay organized? Too bad, we're either going to auto-add things in a way that doesn't make sense, or you're going to get frustrated and turn the auto-add features off and you're still going to have to go hunting for the thing that you want. The entire HUD is awful, but at least they tried to make some of the parts work (albeit, with little success). The hotbar really just looks like resignation to defeat.
Players should be spending our brain cycles trying to figure out what they want to do in the game, but the UI demands that we instead spend them trying to figure out how to do things. That's the sign of a bad interface.
