What makes PoE fun for me.

This is kind of a three part series of feedbacks, split up because of tl;dr, the others can be found here:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1286687
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1286688


I love PoE. And I personally think PoE right now is the best PoE there ever was.
What is it that is special to PoE that makes it this much fun? For me it is the balance and the progression. The way a character constantly feels more powerful throughout the game. PoE is really fun at the beginning, because your char evolves really fast, you get better really fast, you constantly find upgrades, and if you know what you are doing, and with a little bit of RNG, you wreck things right until cruel Vaal. Then comes the first bump in fun for me. Because I don't like act 3, especially not act 3 x. I don't like the mobs, they are tedious, and the pathing through the levels is horrible. And you have to kill the desyncfest that is called Dominus. Desync will be fixed, so this will probably get better. After entering merciless, I love the game again until Merc Vaal, because usually around that time I hit some kind of RNG-wall, where I struggle to find the gear and currency needed to have capped resists and to really be able to level fast. But eventually you get over that, you kill Piety, and around level 66 you go into maps. I never kill Dominus again, because I hate that fight, I have one char that can farm Dominus, that is enough for me. Once you hit maps, the real fun starts, You flesh out your char, you find upgrades again, and your char eventually becomes really powerful, and really feels great. The gems level up, and you start to be able to clear maps really fast.
Here's where my concern for 2.0 comes in: Do we need the mobs to have more life and do more damage in maps. Are too many characters able to "trivialize" content. I don't think so. I really find it rewarding and nice to see my character at around level 80-85 to really be able to wreck maps. And I am glad that when I return to older characters level 90+ that I can just throw in a level 70 map and wreck for 10 minutes. I don't want everything to be a challenge. There are specific challenges for players who seek them: Atziri, uber Atziri, high level maps rolled hard. But I still think a character level 90+ (and those still die in the right circumstances) should be able to just churn through content for the grind of eventually reaching level 100. The challenge should be the grind, not the content itself.
I really dislike games that give you a bigger gun just to learn that you still need 3 shots to kill a monster, because the monsters have a lot more life once you have the bigger gun. Why bother then. PoE was different, and I would like it to stay that way.

Sincerely, t_golgari.