I still feel this way about underutilisation of gear to drive interesting and varied gameplay runs.
The principle mechanic of almost all roguelikes that makes them interesting and replayable over and over and over again is the fact that variety occurs from run to run. In all roguelikes this variety is derived from items and gear.
Tales of Androgyny has great ideas, great art, great combat, and great writing. But it lacks variety from run to run. Encounter outcomes with different monsters are always the same, the player wins the fight and/or the player loses the fight and gets the one single negative outcome that a given monster has to give to the player.
This can be fixed, drastically changing the gameplay and replayability of the entire game, simply by adding gear to the game with varied statuses.
Cursed gear.
The need to "identify" gear at a cost or take the risk it might have negative outcomes by wearing it to test it.
Gear that lowers stats.
Gear that feminises.
Gear with mind control.
Gear with real gameplay affecting RNG.
Etc etc.
Gear should be delivered to the player inventory via fight wins where the player can decide what to do with it.
And the possibility of forced gear being placed on the player should occur on losses.
This will provide interesting outcomes, for example the player might acquire a cursed tail plug which would force the player into making new decisions about werewolf encounters until they can remove the curse. It changes the conditions that the player is playing under.
This is completely balanceable by making the average value of gear that you acquire to sell equal to the average cost of curse removal in an average run where a player takes risks. This approach to balancing it would not affect the existing balance of hunger as a mechanic intended to force the player to progress.
Having everything delivered to the player via predictable encounters makes the gameplay extremely samey once you have already experienced those encounters. It is the variety of potential outcomes and runs that makes other roguelikes replayable over and over and over again. When I meet a werewolf every victory or loss is always the same, this stagnates gameplay in the longterm. With the impact of random loot to the game every victory and every loss can become gameplay altering in its own right, creating a real sandbox.