I think that for transparency sake, players should know the drop rate for rewards and what the rewards are per node. After all, they are spending money on this and should have a good grasp of the mechanisms behind the scenes while gambling on refreshes. I also think it is fair to have the same mechanics between gear and shards as far as rewards. It seems like what you described are slightly different behaviors that are baked into the game without any documentation explaining it. Players have sort of figured out how it works and have expectations in place but they haven't questioned "why is it like that?"
0-2 would be better. Im still not sure CG is being transparent when showing possible rewards without also displaying the % drop rate. An example is the omicron reward. Perhaps moving those rewards which are rarely winnable to "bonus" would be more indicative that this item is not normally going to be dropped. The chance is x% for this reward. This could allow for separating the 2 signal data vs the 1 signal data. Im assuming the drop rate for 2 is lower than for 1. Normally it is 1. Expect 1. But if you get the bonus, it is 1 plus a bonus 1. Can you get the bonus 1 without the initial 1 or is it calculated after already winning 1. I have no idea. That's because there is no transparency on this in-game. That's kind of the crux of the issue and I wish there a way to bridge that gap.
Sorry for being so long winded. I just want clarity. I enjoy the game. I just don't know how I can spend when unsure what my odds are. I would prefer guaranteed drops across the board. Sure, there would need to be some scaling to make that work but it's not guessing and hoping for the drop rate gods to intervene when refreshing a node.
Thx