There was something in Solasta testing that is probably worth bringing up here. Right now, one of the biggest criticisms of the latest period of testing is that magic equipment is far too common, when they were very rare in the earlier phases. But the devs went out and said that they're only this common now for testing purposes, and that they'll be scaled back to their intended rarity in the actual release.
What if the same is happening in BG3 EA? That stuff like barrels and magic arrows/food/thrown flasks are this common because EA is seemingly strictly a testing environment? After all, the rarer something is, the more likely a player will just engage in packrat behavior and just... Not use them at all. If so, we can expect an overall reduction of those in the final game... Hopefully. But if this is the path Larian is going towards, they aren't making that clear at all.
Still, this doesn't really explain things like height/backstab advantage though.
