...
It sure beats watching 99% of the loot drops be almost completely worthless, 0.5% giving me some orb or something I don't even know what to do with (if it's a barter system why can't I pick teleport scrolls instead of shards of whatever?) and 0.5% actually being upgrades.
For the most part, grinding for orb-bits is no different than grinding for gold. Think of the ID fragments like silver coins. That would make ID scrolls like a half-crown gold, the portal scrolls a full-crown gold, transmute orbs like a 20-crown platinum, etc. They aren't shiny discs of metallic shininess, but they _do_ have value within the construct, and the low orbs do have a lot of utility once you have enough to use them in batches.
While the system isn't perfect, I understand why GGG set it up like that. GGG is taking the long view, and trying to make sure the economy doesn't suffer the money plagues recorded in digital history. By making the currency also be the crafting materials, the orb supply is constantly being balanced by usage. If something gets watered down enough to be "cheap", someone _will_ buy up all they can find and go on a crafting bender... oops, they aren't cheap anymore! ^_____^
My loot priority is usually rares+magics (for selling or squirreling), then superior whites (to boil down to A-Scraps and Whetstones), then maybe white junk if I'm low on IDs. Small white things like rings and belts always get picked up, to keep my ID deficit down. I go back to town as often as needed, which is sometimes every third mob if the RNG is feeling nice. Other times I go two or three maps between return trips. This is all with running as much Increased Item Quality as I can conveniently fit into my gear without shorting killing power or resists.