I concur. Keeping that fossil of a mechanic makes no sense and just makes players not use the feature. It'd be better not to have the counterspell at all than to require THE SPECIFIC SPELL in order to counterspell it.
Volley makes hitting something 100 feet away harder than hitting something 10 feet away. I don't care about the balance, it just makes no sesnes and should be removed from the game.
Yeah. Dents and broken conditions seem to be a bigger factor in this edition, so repairing your armor and weapons might not be as unnecessary as you think.