I feel as though some people have forgotten the purpose of a nerf.

A nerf isn't supposed to make something utterly unusable to the point where bringing it is more of a detriment than an upside (I know games over the last couple of years have made it seem that way but trust me it isn't). The purpose of a nerf is to make it so an option isn't so overwhelmingly upside that it becomes the only option and the game basically soft locks you into using that option because not using it is actively a detriment to your effectiveness.

Old dead hard was exactly an option like that, where the strength of builds were judge by how they fit in dead hard and it was hard to use other exhaustion perks because then it would take away your dead hard.

The nerf made it so you can have a strong, effective build without dead hard, in fact, it could be argued that new dead hard isn't even the best exhaustion perk and it is far from the best 2nd chance perk. So IMO the nerf did its job really well.