"2. We all know the problem: You have cool Items and spells in your inventory, but you want to save them for "a really hard fight"."
Honestly, OP, since there is a "usable items" Hotbar that fills automatically I didn't have that problem at all.
Regarding rotting food idk. The way I see it you can "limit" long rest in some specific encounters. Like goblin camp could be a " no long rest" area, if you leave to long rest AFTER engaging in a fight with one of the groups of goblins then maybe some specific events happen. For instance, Mintara escapes. Things like that. If the player is advised of this possibility beforehand then that could be a way to deal with it. Some very specific " closed encounters" could be a way to emphasize resource management and reward the players who manage to overcome the challenge.
Rotting food by itself, if anything ( on paper) encourages spamming long rest even more since you have to use them before they expire. Not sure how they would implement rotting food since the concept of the passage of time is non-existent in the current BG3 version. There are solutions to this but I generally see more issues arising from this than any good things.
