I slogged through general forums today and came back with something useful.
Second anniversary livestream, part 1, from 35:08 to 37:10 - Wyatt Cheng and Jesse McCree talk about Rift it Forward and the current dev stance on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAJHJgoOR0g&list=UUxn8csYeZg6awRnZS-aqg0g#t=2108
The key part is at 36:52. Having just finished talking about RiF and nerfing the Act 1 T6 rift exploit, they continue: (short paraphrase)
(Wyatt)When evaluating whether to nerf something, we consider the gameplay it's creating. If that's "play around with the UIs a lot", it's probably a good candidate for revision.
(Jesse) ... or to sit and watch chat and right click on it.
Later, in segment 4 at 15:00:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNwhz0yqHnM#t=897
(Rob Foote) You know, I think Wyatt said a great piece in his segment. If the gameplay of "what is the best thing to do" starts looking, you know, degenerate or worse, like you're just dealing with UI and chatting with people and trying to figure out if it's your turn to do something, that's probably not going to be the way you want to go. If you're killing monsters and having fun, that's probably the way you do want to go.
Relevant info for people jumping in on those discussions. The last quote by Grimiku isn't the latest!