PoE2 Sanctum is giving me 2022 archnemesis vibes, and I can't go through it again...

Sanctum is an awesome game mode, you could have an entire standalone ARPG game with just the sanctum structure(In fact I'm confident it already exists). But honor is OBVIOUSLY awful... The first thing you want to do in order to succeed in higher sanctum is max out your honor resistance with the relics and effectively remove that system(as much as possible). Which makes the honor system pointless and further ruins the potentially interesting relic system, which is being used(almost exclusively), to bandaid the honor system.

GGG's response to people STILL hating it even after it's poor reception in PoE1 is to give it chemotherapy and shrink the tumor by up to 35% for melee, instead of just cutting that cancer out like we all know they should. The moment GGG just removes the honor system, sanctum goes from frustrating and tedious straight to fun for a large portion of players. It could even make finding djinn baryas feel like a cool reward drop people are excited to see. I just don't want to go through early access, launch, and several leagues nerfing honor damage up to 90% for melee along the way while not actually fixing anything instead of just taking a logical route to the finish line to begin with.

----Rant End------------

Suggestions
A thought I've had(probably not original at this point), is making exclusively trap damage in gauntlet rooms affect honor so that all characters(even beefy ones) still have to partake in gauntlets when they choose them and can't just plow through them. Something that is actually within player control. If you're low on honor maybe you take riskier rooms than trap gauntlets.

(While I'm at it) Another reason sanctum sometimes feels like straight butthole are the afflictions. Why are they so unnecessarily potent? Nothing feels good about opening the first path(or any path) and being offered any handful of things like the following:
1. You have no armor/evasion/ES
2. You cannot restore honor
3. You are permanently slowed by 40%
Tone these WAY down so a reasonable character can make reasonable decisions stacking even a handful of afflictions in exchange for other resources when desired. As it is, a lot of these afflictions are effectively run ending on their own for most characters. And that feels like shit.

The no armour/evasion/ES is a free boon as long as it's the one that doesn't brick your build. And if it bricks your build, you don't pick it.

I agree some of the others are harsh, but the boons are just as powerful. I don't think they need much balancing.