I don't fully agree with a chess analogy, because chess has certain completeness and perfection to it so there isn't really much to improve or innovate on. Where arpgs went a long way (paved by D1 and D2) in terms of user friendliness, content, entertainment and so on.
One example that you know for sure is that respecs were not in the first versions of D2 and were added later in a limited form of quest reward and later on became farmable items in unlimited quantities and is a universally accepted improvement which all other arpgs do today.
And of course you enjoy what you do, my suggestion is to iterate on that, not to remove that aspect. This tool is a job well done from what I can see anyway.