Here is what my game session typically looks like. I go out and do quests until my inventory is full. Then I go to Kelethin, sell junk and deposit unique and some exceptional items (my Ranger is in early Nightmare) in the bank.

Eventually the bank space fills up. When that happens, I look for duplicates scattered across my alts and move them to the Ranger. Then the Ranger spends 20-30 minutes upgrading duplicate/triplicate items until there is only one of each left. Then I move the upgraded items to the appropriate alt: Paladin for plate armor, Wizard for hats and so on. That also takes some time because of the number of alts.

When you add everything up, it can take an hour to get everything upgraded and sorted out. It's not hard, just time-consuming and, frankly, boring. It is certainly the least pleasant part of the game.

So my questions are:

1. Is this how other people play? Is this intended?
2. Is it possible to make the process less time-consuming? Perhaps more bank space or quicker upgrades?

I just pick the best of the duplicate/triplicate pieces and more them to the proper alt. I don't upgrade anything past 3-4 because the few extra armor/resists don't matter late game to me at that level, it may to you though.

More bank space would be nice though considering how many items drop in a play session.

Some simple ideas would be like... an option for fast upgrades. I could also make the upgrade chance higher but cost more gold.

That would be a nice option, ramp up the gold cost a lot but give a reasonable chance to get closer to 10/10? Not much else to do with all the goldz

That's a very good question. I just checked my gear and the upgrades only add +9 to the resists because duplicates of high level items are hard to find. Maybe I should just chill out and forget about upgrades...

Plus, maybe just focus on upgrading the items for the character you're actually focusing on. Sort out the gear later when you decided to switch characters. Sounds like you're letting your OCD get the best of you!

+9 resists on every item is nothing to scoff at, but currently the risk vs reward is rough. Unless you have a bunch of copies of the same exceptional item, I can't justify risking it to get a few extra resists. Like you said getting to 10/10 is lolz. What if the upgrade was almost guaranteed at each teir but the cost was exponential starting at 50g?

No guts, no glory. I'm kind of married to the idea of destroying items. It gets items out of the economy. Successfully upgraded items become super valuable. It gives you a reason to have more than one of the same item(backup). I am open to tinkering with success rates and cost, though.

Well, the reason that I have to clear the bank once it gets full is that my 13 alts' inventories are close to overflowing with all kinds of unique and now exceptional items. If I don't upgrade my duplicates, I will have to either start destroying them or create even more alts.

I guess I can start getting rid of less useful uniques, but different classes have different needs, so it's not always easy to tell which one is better.

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. What I meant was that the sum total of the upgrades in excess of 1/10 is only +9 when you add up all of my gear: one 4/10 and a few 3/10s and 2/10s. I have a lot of lower level 8/10s-9/10s on alts, which I am sure will be very handy when I start playing those alts, but for now they are just dead weight. Perhaps, as Maelfyn said, I am letting my OCD get the better of me

I remember doing similar item swapfests in diablo 2. It was a lot of work and I would drop a ton of items on the ground with a friend anchoring the game. I don't think there's a perfect way to solve that. It's fun... like sorting your sock drawer!

I am sort of trying to think of an approach that would make things more fun. Something that would make me look forward to getting the next unique, I guess, since currently it's typically a non-event.

For example, what if you could "merge" two identical items with the resulting item having its stats set so that all the values are as good as the better value of the original items? Since uniques are usually slightly different, it would yield a somewhat better item.

I guess the danger here is that if there is too much variation between identically named uniques, too much merging would create overpowered items.

That could be fun, but honestly most uniques I find have at most 1 or two stat variations. They almost always roll 80% identical stats, for me at least.

There are some items that have a wide range of values. In fact many items roll completely different stats, like a random spellcasting skill.