"It would be great, but I think that you're overstating the old system of depositing minerals to make Arcade gates. Only a tiny fraction of players participated, and an even smaller fraction of players ever had any serious effect."

Yes, for the most part people just mindlessly deposited minerals. However, there were plenty of guilds that made serious effort to change strata 3 before JK and strata 5 before FSC. The system of adding a third most prominent mineral to cancel and randomize the choice set let smaller groups have a chance of influencing the gates as well.

"If you don't remember the countless freeze and poison themed strata that happened as a result of the Battle Sprite update being mixed with the old Arcade gate construction, then I don't know what to say."

I remember. Yes, you can't have gate materials both be a crafting material and be used for gate construction.

"I don't see any way the old system could possibly be better than the new one"

Did you not play back in the day? Gate construction was one of the more interesting parts of the game if you were a member of the endgame community back in the day. Today, there's really no sense of a complete community - everyone really does their own thing with no influence on anyone else.

"I hope that the Arcade Redux offers a much more powerful option. "

Yeah, I hope so too. That's all we can do I suppose is hope.

"However, there were plenty of guilds that made serious effort to change strata 3 before JK and strata 5 before FSC.

What point would this serve now, though?"

I'm talking about the spirit of player agency, not about specific implementations (or else this would belong in suggestions). Obviously gate building reintroduced as it used to be wouldn't work for a variety of reasons (as already discussed).

I think most vets can agree that there is less control over the world than there used to be. Danger missions rotate on their own schedule, 000 controls when events come and go, the experience of Cradle is largely controlled by the Rank Mission script, etc. If the game was a single player game, it might be hard to even notice the difference at this point if you don't actively participate in Lockdown. Speaking for myself only, part of the reason I came to this game, in addition to the fantastic art style and combat, was that this was a world that the players themselves influenced. Players influencing strata to try to drum up easier arenas, trolls spawning Dark City before FSC, or the community trying to spawn an undead strata to try out the new Grimalkin maps all contributed to the feeling the community was part of the world.