You got days of reading material on “what’s so wrong with it” just by browsing these forums, but I am the last person to tell you what’s wrong with the progression system since I don’t believe there is one.
I’ll explain:
For example, let’s say that your goal is to win a Jackpot while playing the slot machine. Would you say that playing the slot machine counts as “progression” towards that goal?
I wouldn’t.
You can hit the Jackpot on your first try, or never, or anything in between, and even if you earn 1000$ in the process, you are still no closer to your goal. After a million pulls on the lever, you are just as close to your goal as you were when you started.
To claim that gambling is progression towards some goal would be a perfect example of the gambler’s fallacy.
Just to give you a plastic example of how this existing system in DT could be made progressive:
Imagine that you could turn in any orange weapon in exchange for a special token. You can now exchange 5 tokens to unlock any lvl 1 blessing, and 5 tokens to upgrade 1 level of any blessing.
This way, you would be guaranteed any blessing you want at highest level just by playing the game. You can set a goal (some blessing) and progress towards it. You cannot get the lvl4 rare blessing on your first try, but at least you know how to get it and what you need to do.
That is progression.
Gambling is not progression.