I think this is the point of hard disagreement, I either make do with what villagers offer (by ignoring them entirely) or start exploiting, and neither feels satisfactory; I wouldn't call it in-depth either, data miners and META pioneers dug all the depth out of the system.

As for villager curing: the act of curing a villager is an intended mechanic, but what is not an intended mechanic is locking up a villager with a zombie, let the zombie eat the villager, cure the latter for a price reduction, rinse and repeat. Not required (like anything in the game, which is the point of it), but cuts some of the grind.