The same could be said about any non standard, not perfectly min/maxed, disorganized or haphazard playstyle because we know that all 7 days players are letter perfect gaming pros or will be if only they stick with it long enough? This isn't Elden Ring and most of the people that play it are casual, so yes it would be a good idea to accommodate the broadest number of players as possible so long as it doesn't affect other players negatively or are exploitable to bypass progression. You want everyone to have the best experience possible, right?
"so long as it doesn't affect other players" which it usually does when you change game mechanics.
I would say the game as it is balanced now rewards team play when you play in a team. What you seem to propose is balancing it so you can be as effective as a selfish person in a team which would mean there would be no incentive for team play. That would affect everyone.
Interesting that you'd take that position on tools. The reason why tools are unique is because you need to be able to craft them as soon as possible because every minute you have to wait is experience lost when you rely on that tool to get your experience. That isn't true for any other crafting task.
Well sure, if we are talking about min/maxing and perfect play. In reality many players waste hundreds of opportunities for getting XP and still have fun. I usually am up to 10 levels behind our INT/trader/xp whore player in our group by the time we cross level 50. Guess what, it doesn't matter, since we don't play PvP I don't feel any hindrance and usually one of the guys with more levels gets killed a lot more than I do.
And I am not sure if you wrote this before reading the rest of my post, but I have shown that a builder would get the better tools at exaclty the same time, independant of who reads the tools magazines. So your point is about xp gain, but not about magazines and cooperation at all.
But it has everything to do with it. If you're not questing you're relying on shared exp and/or what you can get from resource gathering to be able to progress your resource gathering perks, for example, and since your rate of exp gain is intrinsically linked to how much damage that tool does...
And since you don't get the tool any earlier when the looter brings back the magazines instead of the ability to craft the better tool, that point is not about magazines at all.
Right now gathering exp seems to be the same as it was when you could find that iron axe or pick in the trunk of a car before you even made it to your first trader, and could level up your tool crafting the same time you leveled your resource gathering and seems to be geared towards those conditions which have obviously changed.
Except that they sell at the trader, sure.
Ah, so what you really want to say is that you are missing the progression shortcut by putting all points into miner69er and craft a quality3 iron pickaxe on say day 2 or have that lucky find in a trunk? Am I right in assuming this is the issue?
Since that is gone you builders have to follow a rather slow tool progression like everyone else (Or do you think the PER player is happy about using a hunting rifle at first?). Well ok, if XP gathering now proves to be much slower for builders than for looters then surely TFP can increase the XP gain from upgrading blocks or hitting blocks until it is balanced for everyone. Nothing to do with magazines. Apart from that you should not be surprised that the game by default wants everyone to follow the progression.