Important factor being that player / their V would have option not to have them. Realistically though, once items / reward mechanics like these are introduced, it's probably very hard to take them away and these are more or less important for some players.
Cost of rewards, that can present a problem as more expensive item gets, it sort of values worth of V but, then it could work also. I mean how many gigs for that 150k? So from fixers point of view this could preset an opportunity for them to squeeze all those eddies they paid back from V to maximize their profits and that might reflect to even further for something subtle, like if V sells that iconic 150k katana, it would turn out to be like 15k katana.
Huge contributing factor to my positive experience with game before this was that my V was like a pizza guy working for a company doing deliveries. Different skill set but essentially just one mercenary among others and I never took phone calls from fixers and number of jobs available making my mercenary anyone special but just someone who was possibly option to get gig done. Like pizza guy gets a call, it's whoever is available, that doesn't mean that particular pizza guy is any more important than others. That build towards freedom to figure my V as someone who doesn't really give a fuck about what fixers think, he is into it for the money.
Reward item things, that they are so personal. I'd rather had it play out like access to something via their contacts. That being a weapons dealer with some special stock that would come available in the Afterlife.
There's also that not everyone had that problem. I recall seeing few posts about lack of progression but I never realized what it truly meant before I saw how CDPR solution, what we have now.
What this means on higher level:
People go to gym and it's not only very convenient, but also practical necessity to be able to perform exercises in different order. It's what equipment is available and to keep it fun, do things bit differently sometimes to prevent it becoming something too banal.
Golf. It's convenient sometimes to do half a course, or even third and not necessarily 1 to 6 but intervals from 3 to 18. Or maybe someone wants to practice just bunkers and it's not very effective way to do that to play entire course but just focus on those.
Something as simple as jogging. It can be very practical to find a familiar route and time that. After a while it can also be very convenient to find alternate routes within time budget.
Those may give us something to work with when we think of a difference between a distraction, a hobby and a habit. It's easy to note that some things can be all of those but yet if you think game design, some designs work towards just one.
So what we had before, was it a compromise or was it trying to something new or something unfinished. Regardless, it allowed experimenting and what we have now, while welcomed by some is like a huge red flag just because people are different.
It's a pity really as writing, how much GIG's can contribute to world building and that world they created actually and stories actually manage pass the mark of: Did this work add to understanding about the real world and if user can continue that journey by reading relevant non fiction. It's always that people pick up different things from novels, movies, games, it's that there's window of opportunity, the rest is up from individuals.
CokyRustler didn't answer for my question about history, so I'm left with very little information here, but Occams razor is that: Considering this isn't their first game, they have had despite very thin catalogue, much data in a form of user feedback collected by various methods, like any company, this is most viable move form them to secure sales of future expansions. They know needs of their core audience and secure their income for meeting those needs. In other words, problem we discuss about here they were trying to solve, might be different than problem CDPR perceived they had to solve.