POE 2 has a problem with defenses

The state of defenses in POE 2 is kind of all over the place. Here are my issues with mitigating damage.

• Dodge rolling is a good addition to the game, but like Kripparian said, the game feels balanced around it. We need things like armor and evasion to be stronger if they are going to be worth investing in. Either that or have mobs do less damage. As the game progresses I want to feel myself getting more tanky. No matter how high my armor or evasion got I still felt like a glass cannon
• Bosses need longer windows to punish them after they attack. This affects melee massively. Most bosses never stop attacking even for a few seconds (some actually have good punish windows). If the game wants to be more like Elden ring and have one shots, we need to be able to attack the boss without getting hit.
• Runes need to be able to be replaced on armor, and honestly might need a buff or some way to craft stronger runes. I never felt like they helped a whole lot with hitting resistance cap.
• More essence drops and more frequent artificers orbs, blacksmith whetstones, and armor scraps dropping would help a lot. I am getting kind of sick of having to scrap white gear that takes up a lot of inventory space just to get these items. I like the idea of scrapping and it should stay in the game, but I should scrap gear I've been using for awhile (IMO)
• I honestly like the idea of the passive tree removing most defensive nodes because it makes the choices on the tree easier (I am a fairly newer player), but for the most part it feels like those defenses aren't made up elsewhere and it does take agency away in terms of fixing defensive problems.
• This isn't entirely about defenses, but why do attributes only give you one stat now? This really disincentivizes Intelligence and ESPECIALLY Dexterity. Idk if this is already made up for like with the passive tree changes but it doesn't feel like it.

I have put 76 hours into the game as a mercenary and just hit end game. After getting destroyed 5 times in a row in tier 1 maps I'm pretty much done with the game until a new patch comes out. The game is amazing in so many areas and has so much potential, but it really does feel 50%-70% too hard to be enjoyable.

I don't want all the difficulty and complexity to disappear, but I also feel like (with the exception of a few overpowered builds) I have felt like I was barely holding on throughout the entire game and never hit a point where I was blasting through maps.

EDIT: After resistance capping and playing more I definitely feel more tanky and am gonna continue playing, HOWEVER, splitting half armor and half evasion as a mercenary definitely feels weak. I tried the evasion conversion notable thinking it was gonna feel different, but it only added 10% to my armor lol.