I think it's a matter of getting used to some things (in this example the death debuff). People are so used to fighting how it was in A16 it's painful to watch them fight sometimes (and i mostly mean streamers).
If i made mistakes in any souls game and died with many souls (or blood echoes, the equivalent of $$$) it was my bad for not being careful, but also not using them when i could. Surely, running back to where they were dropped and picking them up is an option, unless you are denied it by dying again (then they're gone). "Oh no, another 10k, 20k, 50k souls that i got from that last boss went to waste!".
I still play souls games and i still occasionally lose lots of souls. Hell, i watch some great streamers like SquillaKilla who made deathless and hitless runs in all of the games, but he also occasionally loses lots of souls when he tries out various challenges or mods. You could go through the whole game simply mashing on attack, but then there are shields. If not only using shields there's dodging. If not dodging there's parrying. If you mind up close there are ranged weapons. Don't like ranged, there's magic in various forms. No matter the game though, everything can be recovered, unless you start losing important and powerful items on death - that's too cheesy.
If i go into a POI in 7DTD always the same, enraging many zombies at a time and get overwhelmed in similar situations, i should improve on how i do things and move on from my mistakes. Try doing stealth, baiting Zs one at a time, escaping to an open field (if i fought them in tight spaces), use ranged weapons or traps (seen someone put down a turret in front of a poi for dealing with ferals/radz, spikes could work too). If i don't adapt and get killed over and over surely i'd feel bad, but it's my error in thinking the game is bull***t instead of trying other things.
IN SHORT: I liked the long waiting for the debuff to end (doing other things than fighting, but also it stacking on each death) because i felt the consequences of my bad decisions. I miss that feeling...