I’m enjoying this game for the most part, but I don’t *get it*

Sounds like you are farming and looting way too much. Just progress the quests without clearing every zone and you will find challenge.

The only thing that matters is are you having fun?

Personally I play hardcore only because it means I have to play carefully and my gear really matters. So far lvl 60 is my highest character. Took me several attempts to get out of act 1

Not sure if others said this but get a loot filter. You will stop picking up so much junk this way.

campaign in both poe and poe2 are basically tutorials of the game.

Just take it slow and learn what you can your first play through and it won’t be so confusing and feeling lost or like you’re playing it wrong

Vaal temple is indeed confusing starting out but it gets easier to understand. I’d recommend watching a couple of videos to fully grasp it.

gold is almost irrelevant unless you want to reskill, start ignoring the white and blue items unless you are looking for specific upgrades.

there is no wrong way to play the game, if you have fun.

if you dont feel challenged maybe increase the pase, stay 2-3 levels under the zone level, grap the "leap slam" skill to boos mobility.

if your map tells you there is no "permanent bonus" to be head in your zone, move on, no need to kill every monster.

That's usually the point when I personally just give up gathering blue items (unless they are my armour/weapon type, then quick identify and drop if they are meh), but instead just limit myself to gathering yellows and using the checkpoints to drop them near entrance to mass-clean once I'm done.

It is a case of "the more financially comfortable You are, the less You care about every single penny".
The biggest value of temple early game is XP and currencies to craft better gear. As for the gold, once You get into currency exchange (spoiler if You want a tip:)>!and selling all skill gems You should've hoarding for example!<, You will find a lot of use for it outside of gambling. Until then, just play Your pace and enjoy the game.

Plus:
Temple ramps up in difficulty when You put more specific rooms and upgrade them, hiding behind "effective" term. The more bonuses from rooms You get, the harder and more rewarding they are. And some Tier 3 rooms can have bosses if You want something bigger to fight.

Really until you get ascendancy points for your character your playstyle really doesn’t matter.. just keep playing and then when you feel like you start to “fall off” or the game is waaayyy too difficult you can look up online builds that are more optimized

Don’t let anyone tell you “how to enjoy the game”

If you feel like you have no need for gold just stop bothering youself with picking up items.
On my first playthrough I enjoyed the dialogue/story, the campaign in general. It took me +50h to finish.

If the game is too easy then yeah get through the campaign asap, then you’ll start getting the harder enemies. Also, gold is more important when you want to trade with other players and trade currencies. It’s so easy to burn through hundreds of thousands of gold in minutes just by trading

Your 29k gold is like one monster pack at end game