Hmm, I see what you mean with the balancing issues inherent of rare charms and the like.

One thing that I really want to aim for in this is to make everything much bigger, faster (in terms of selecting skills, movement - overall action of the game, not the quests or ability to gain levels), and cosmetically prettier.

Of course, one cold ask, "What's the point of having 130k damage and 35k defense and 24k life, etc... if you simply up EVERYTHING ELSE in order to balance it, thereby making it like normal Diablo II, but with bigger number?"

My answer would simply be:
"Because bigger numbers are more fun, and may actually allow certain variants that lower numbers wouldn't."

I don't plan on having people play this mod with others, but that is definitely something to consider. Diablo, by its nature, is made more fun - sometimes - when playing with others. But there is a part of me that wishes to make this mod reflect a more single-player oriented dungeon crawl.

And yeah, I'm certain I'll use the 1.10 version. The damage cap and other things are definitely a nuisance, and will inevitably create issues since much of this mod - as I plan it - is to make everything bigger and faster.

A problem I've seen with a lot of mods is that there are either far too easy, or are mind-bogglingly hard. Even Median suffers from this, as the current version is, simply put, a cakewalk.

As for exploits... I'm sure most of the exploits - as there inevitably will be some - will appear once (if) I am finished with it, but most of what you mentioned will definitely be taken into account when planning this.

Maybe I could implement a system that allows the player to use utility skills in town OFFLINE, but once online, they are disabled as usual? I think that would prevent TPPK and the like.

A lot of Diablo II is chance, so keeping the possibility of FE may be best. It sucks, but hey, Fanaticism/Stone Skin/FE Lister also sucked, and we got by it.