If everything is auto in a video game, then what's the point of playing? Food and other items make treasure that you find special. As mentioned, if you only ever find special loot and there isn't much of a search system, it would get pretty boring.

I'm also a DM, and I've said pretty much the same thing. But it did hit me. Without the mundane in a video game, the special isn't as special.

Imagine you start the game on the nautiloid. The game has your character immediately roll the dice like in tabletop. You make a Perception check. Narrator voice says, "You find 30 gold and two potions of speed on a dead mind flayer and some thralls."

Well. No need to search the room now. No need to map it out and see all the cool graphics they spent a million hours working on. Just run out the door and go. Sure, it speeds up the game, but in the end you'd miss out on so much.

That said, I think it all goes back to a bad item management system. If they fixed that, the useless junk wouldn't be an issue.