Simulacrums are in a very bad place right now

One of the endgame contents of POE1 that I enjoy the most are Simulacrums, I probably ran thousands of them over the course of all the leagues and they are always great fun. As in POE1, the build requirements are quite high if you want to farm them reliably, which I think is good, as it makes it the ultimate test to your build. I would like to summarise what I think about Simulacrums at the current state of POE2:

1. I like the way the difficulty increases with each tier and it feels well balanced. Unfortunately, I don't feel that the quality of loot increases with each tier, which makes it pointless in my eyes to go into the higher tiers, which are noticeably more dangerous and therefore don't offer any reward for the risk, especially with only 1 portal available. Of course, GGG has no influence on the price of a Simulacrum on the market. But compared to POE1, where you could break even on almost every run and often halfway through already, in POE2 you have to be very lucky to break even. The loot feels so underwhelming to me that all too often your only hope is to get that one big flask drop after the final wave, or you end up with a loss. Relying on a single drop at the end with a very low probability of dropping is the exact opposite of POE1, where almost every wave drops something of value, which adds up to profit the further you get even without a big drop. Especially while you are still in a character state where you cannot reliably complete all waves, it is very demotivating to enter Simulacrums, as it is almost guaranteed to end up with a loss in currency and EXP.

2. Instead of the same map layout running through the entire course of a Simulacrum as in POE1, POE2 splits it up into several areas. While I like the concept of adding a little variety, some of the areas you end up in are far too small to efficiently dodge incoming monsters jumping at you from all sides. Mix in a Kosis, an Omniphobia, or both at the same time, and there can be situations where there is literally no room to dodge unless you have one of those (unbalanced) overpowered builds that can kill everything on sight.

3. The edges of the areas are cluttered with splinters that you can walk through. This visually reduces the area even more and sometimes makes it hard to see the entire space available. My suggestion would be to place them outside the walkable area or remove them altogether.

4. Stash, Portal and Strangely Familiar Entity are often too close together. This makes it difficult to click on the right thing.

5. The Preview Window of the next wave is sometimes above the loot, which can make it impossible to pick it up.

6. At the end of wave 15 you sometimes get a preview window of non-existing wave 16/15 which can be a bit confusing.

From an economic point of view, let's compare 3 of the end game farming options that are not based on mapping, and let's assume you have a char that can reliably clear all content:

Trial of Chaos (10 trials): Entry costs 1 Exalted. You are guaranteed to make a profit, a huge one if you are lucky. Compared to Simulacrums, this is a fairly easy challenge, taking 10-15 minutes to complete and less time than completing a Simulacrum.

Trial of Sekhemas (4 trials): Entry costs 1 Exalted. You are guaranteed to make a profit, in many cases a huge one. It takes considerably longer to complete and is harder than Trial of Chaos, but the rewards are well worth it.

Simulacrums: Entry costs about 200 Exalted as of now. Could go down as more people reach endgame content and can farm splinters in large numbers, but I dont see it going below 1 Divine over the course of a league. That would make the entry cost 100-120x higher than the other options you have, which give you a guaranteed (huge) profit, whereas with Simulacrums (from my experience) you cannot break even most of the time.

Example Loot of wave 15/15 Monster Level 82: Unique Helm (1 Ex worth), 3x Distilled Ire (5:1 Exalted), 2x Distilled Ire (1:1.5 Ex), Waystone Tier 3 (?) and some worthless rare gear. Total return of investment for that Simulacrum after entry costs: a negative 150 Exalts.

If this disparity in profitability continues, people will lose interest in running Simulacrums.

After one try of Simulacrum I have exactly same feedback (points 2-5).