I don’t know anything about the NG+ system because I steered way clear of Starfield, but it sounds like somebody at Bethesda saw people playing Skyrim over and over and thought “How can we monetize that”, hence the grind you’re alluding to. The expected you to encounter it organically because of course the game was such hot shit everyone was gonna play it forever. Oops.

Call me a cynic if you want but these are the guys who invented paid cosmetics.