While I do think both the loot and crafting systems could still be improved, there are reasons for all the decisions FS has made considering them.
Yes, there were no red dupes in VT1 (well, unless you count Quest rewards). There was also exactly one red variant for each weapon at first, two with practically free change between them later, which made duplicates unneeded and unwanted. They had (mostly or completely, I’m not certain) different ability combinations from oranges, so they were unique that way. If you wanted to try other ability setups, you needed to use Exotics (i. e. oranges) with high rolls - which could be reliably achieved through the Altar. Of course, even that came in later in the game’s lifespan; at first, you had no way to reroll properties.
In VT2, they decided they wanted the reds to be somewhat less exclusive, so as the whole weapon attribute system was reworked, they were also opened to the same Property and Trait combinations as any other weapon. This worked to make the system as a whole more consistent, but removed the uniqueness from the red weapons - now they’re just glorified oranges, with their special illusion or without. They also decided to remove rerolling Property percentages directly, as that would’ve narrowed the gap between oranges and reds even more. This also led to red duplicates actually having value, as many players want different variants for different setups, so there may be need for even three or four different versions of the same weapon, so duplicates have been allowed.
At first, the reds’ rarity was roughly on the level with VT1, probably still a bit more common. The community complained, and their chances to appear were raised, including a small chance from the highest Champ chest and Commendation chests. Not really that different, as if you were very, very lucky in VT1, you also could get a red weapon at the second-highest difficulty. Their reduced value also corresponds with their increased chances.
The complaint about red duplicates, particularly jewelry, still persisted, though, so they gave us a way to get rid of those unwanted duplicates, triplicates and so on and get something of value out of them - namely, the red weapons we want. Well, without the Illusion, but that doesn’t affect the weapon’s performance any. It still performs just as well as any other, you just can’t show off your luck anymore.
As for the loot system itself, I think the only thing that was better in VT1 was the visuals. Ranald’s Bones tied a bit better into the world and game, and following the dice felt exciting even if the result was likely determined as soon as the visuals flew. We get both more stuff now at once, and getting the rarer stuff is easier, making our equipment progress a lot faster, even if waiting for the last quarter to Emperor’s and clicking open every chest is more boring.
All in all, for the whole loot and crafting thing, I think the game has improved a lot - during VT1, transferring to VT2, and during VT2. There are still things to enhance, particularly quality of life stuff, and I’m quite disappointed at the reds’ lost uniqueness between games (which I’ve actually ranted about before, and no, magical LEDs don’t make them unique), but the game is still (hopefully) at the beginning of its life and there’s a lot of time for more things to change, and as can be seen, the devs do listen to our complaints.
Oh, and also, the way we get the DLC weapons now is hugely better than VT1. No more Ranald needed to get even one piece… Even if I’m slightly, but only slightly, disappointed that they’re bound to owning the DLC. Well, mostly because I can understand the marketing viewpoint for it.
Considering the DLC maps… Well, as the dev blog some time ago showed, remastering the levels wasn’t a small undertaking, with not that much they could reuse. I’m a bit disappointed that they’re still pretty much the same without that much added tricks, but I guess Payday 2 (when I still played it) gave a little too high a standard for this kind of thing. And considering what maps, and how many, got remastered… well, I didn’t even expect to see any of the DLC maps here, as they were even originally, well, DLCs - optional content. And in addition to the maps we got, Wizard’s Tower, Supply and Demand and The Enemy Below were even real options - I guess they could’ve tried to mash a few of the short ones into one longer one, but that’d feel… weird, at least, and even of those three, at least Tower and Enemy were structured in a way that’s harder to translate into the new systems. So I don’t know what more we should have expected.