The problem that I had with DoS 2 was that the gear was on a steep quality ramp as you go through the areas and you had to upgrade far too often. I much prefer the bounded accuracy of BG3 where you *can* get better stuff as you go, but the difference between unenchanted and +2 is still fairly small (though certainly noticeable).
I am far more agnostic on the matter of randomness, although I do have a slight preference for hand placed. You can always install a mod to get randomness if that is your preference (or if you are tired of finding things in exactly the same place after a first couple of playthroughs).
