You killed zombie Flanders! He was a zombie?

https://frinkiac.com/caption/S04E05/1192557

Plus

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Best_of_Both_Worlds_(episode)

Equals meme

True, but small businesses fail all the time for all kinds of reasons. Lack of core members is like the co-op equivalent of the trope where the original owner of a small business sells it to some idiot who makes awful decisions and it all goes down the tubes. It doesn’t really explain why for every 100+ traditional businesses that are started, only like 1 co-op is started (numbers made up, obviously, but it feels that way).

The loan part makes a lot of sense, much easier for a bank to deal with a single person rather than a whole cooperative. Funnily enough, the Cheeseboard and Arizmendi were the two co-ops I was thinking of when I made this post. I was just musing about how in the Bay Area practically every small business has all the trappings of progressive politics (the signs, inclusivity, supporting various causes) but so few actually put their money where there mouth is and organize into co-ops.

It might seem counter-intuitive, but I think what you’re describing is a better system. If unique items are too strong, when you find one you’re basically done with that entire gear slot, which limits your upgrade paths. Conversely, if a strong rare with perfect stats is better than every unique for that slot, that leaves the door open for a hypothetical future upgrade that could reshape your build, even if it’s incredibly rare to hit those BiS stats. Path of Exile does this well, in that there are only a couple unique items that are so strong they’re useful for every build (HH, Mageblood). Most unique items fall on the ‘weird/cool’ side, where they enable certain builds or skill combinations that otherwise wouldn’t have any chance of success, but they’re almost always significantly weaker than a perfect rare item.

Icy-veins is legit, they’ve been around doing game guides since Wrath of the Lich King was new. I want to say the name is even a reference to the WotLK Death Knight ability. No idea who runs it or what their deal is, but they’ve been a good resource for 10+ years so they’re doing something right.