It's a shame that you ignored all items, maybe you should try playing with plugy.
Perhaps a fundamental issue here is comparing viability in a single-player self-found environment (although I'm skeptical of "self-found" builds involving 6+ high runes) vs a multiplayer game with leaderboards. I played the game a hell of a lot of online and people were just as elitist and dismissive of unusual things then as they are now.
But hey, I'm sure that ignoring rares was a pretty rare practice...let's do a quick search:
https://www.diabloii.net/forums/threads/rares-which-to-pick-up.575457/
(Ignore the vast majority of what drops.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/diablo2/comments/8rd2h7/what_rare_and_magic_items_are_worth_picking_up/
On Bnet it's probably not with picking up many/most things.
Hey, that's where I played!
That said, still suggests that you ignore most things that drop overall.
Plenty of items that are exceptional are end game
I did play the game...
How many meta exceptional Uniques do you see on your average playthrough of Nightmare? I'd say my average was ~1 truly good piece (eg: Titan's Revenge, Herald of Zakarum, Oculus) per 40-50 Nightmare playthroughs? There's a reason I forgot to add them to my list earlier, which is that I forgot. However, yes, you should generally pick up and equip or save Uniques. Some are useful, and some are even endgame.
On the other hand, I don't think I've raised a D3 character yet who didn't at least get a Legendary that I could cube for max level, on top of regularly swapping gear from levels 1-70.
You can make pretty sweet builds, werebear sorc with dream helm and dream shield with max lightning mastery and hand of justice weapon with dragon body armour with max fire mastery, enchant and warmth for a pretty sweet elemental sorc werebear.
You have a (presumably, given that you're recommending mods) solo, self-found character using (what was generally considered) a meme build with 6 high runes? Dang. I suspect there were more efficient ways to play, but that's one of the joys of a game where you don't have an online leaderboard to compare yourself to.