Remove the lockout but keep the difficulty, even as a player who hasn't passed beyond turn 2 I think that's fair. I was never really a fan of the lockout in the first place it just tells us SE isn't confident in the games offerings to allow us to play when we want as hard as we want.

Personally the game needs to focus on other areas rather than just the singular goal of gear progression but that's just me I guess.

Hell it's not like they didn't try and fall flat on their faces elsewhere though (Housing)