>>874670
>A lot of them provide actual utility beyond crit sticks with passives that can be triggered by other characters
That's just fringe cases that apply to some specific characters that share a speciality and element or damage type, and it's not like they don't apply to newer agents. Alice and Jane can use each other's balls, Yid can use Shishou's, Seed's ball is a big CR stick for any attacker.
>>874670
>ZZZ hasn't suffered much yet from characters who are bricks without sigs but I doubt it'll be that way forever.
That only happens in gachas where you're expected to be able to roll for everyone's sigs and/or dupes like PGR. Among modern Hoyo games HSR has the most characters where people cry about characters who
NEED their sig but I have most of these characters (Castorice, Sunday, Rappa, Feixiao to name a few) and none of them feel like bricks nor uncomfortable to use.
>>874677
>that means we'll have to keep using the same craftable and/or early signature engines over and over again
That's a valid point I guess, I like how Genshin gets a ton of craftables and event weapons to use on different characters, if only it wasn't so annoying to get bilets and event weapons didn't get banished to the shadow realm forever after the event is over.