I loved the hardcore mode of NV and would never consider playing without it. The great thing about that feature was that it was a (somewhat) supported feature that presumably had been tested. I think the argument that convenience features can be turned off or not used is a fallacy, because it's impossible to tell beforehand whether the game will work or feel balanced without it.
I'm an old school gamer and if I am presented with a set of house rules, I play by the rules even if I disagree with them, because that results in a better gameplay experience for everyone involved. That may sound silly in a single-player game where no one else is affected. However if a single-player game presents me with a specific ruleset, I have to assume that this is how the designer intended the game to be played, which would hopefully lead to the best gameplay experience.
More concretely turning off quest guides or modding away hints in a game often doesn't work so well if the world is lacking other types of guiding. Games without GPS aids relies on more subtle hints to guide the player. If the game doesn't have those hints turning off the GPS will leave the player blind. As players we simply don't know what feature set would work in this case until subsequent playthroughs.
On the matter of junk items, I think when DA2 took the step to label junk as junk was the point where they might as well have left it out completely. It seemed so obvious that the designers never even considered why games have 'junk' items and whether DA2 would be better off without them.
Junk can be used in a good way to 'clutter' the game world, to give the illusion that the world is bigger than it is. It's part of a magic trick, but the moment the mechanics of the illusion is shown is the moment it breaks. As players we really don't need to know that the junk serves no mechanical purpose.
DA:O used the classical approach to junk. The junk was not junk but vendor treasure. Bottles of Orlesian wine, expensive paintings, exquisite jewelry. It looked and felt like treasure. In DA2 junk was junk and therefore pointless. Even the icon was junk.
![[The]Rock](https://eg-forums-escapist-data.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/data/avatars/l/109/109717.jpg?1620924201){kind=avatar}
) I think the part of femininity discussed here also comes in play. Amaterasu is a goddess...but her physical appearance in Okami is that of a male wolf, she even behaves like a wolf and not like a divine being in the shape of a wolf. How much would you guys say she is actually a strong female character whose sex simply doesn't matter at all to the plot (so, pretty much the perfect female protagonist) or would you say is she a character whose femininity is so eliminated that she doesn't even count as a female character at all any more?
