Wow someone must have died a few times on their corpse run.

Skills are nice, but are in no way critical to your success as a player and you can finish all the current bosses with low skills. I personally just play the game and skill up as I do so. I have never concentrated on gaining skills or worry too much about where they are at any one point..

As to gear it really all depends. A set of Troll armor can get you to the Plains if you play smart and Wolf armor is a another set you can do fine in. I agree that Bronze needs something to make it worthwhile, but most people tend to skip making a maxxed set if any set at all. And gathering resources is part of this genre, but I will admit I don't think I have ever spent 10 hours mining.

I have not seen any mods that draw my attention, none that 'fix' the game as the game is not broken and some I would argue make the game pretty much a face-roll, but to each their own.

Maybe the OP just had a bad run, but the game seems to work for the vast majority of players. Here is to hopping the OP finds a game they like.