I had something like 360 or so of the rare lingerie stockpiled from before the update (always sold all other affection items I got from pachinko, never felt like I needed them with the way it was before). Getting Bunny and Juliette to 5 star and then getting Solveig and Stephanie to drop and getting them both to 3 star, I'm down to 90 of them leftover. (Also dropped from around 15mil cash to around 9 mil cash between the charge in the scenes and what I've put into pachinko.) That might cover a few more girls to 1 or 2 stars (if I stop there and don't push any more towards 3 stars). I've gotten some affection items from pachinko (which were also used up in the leveling I mentioned) after the update, but it seems like they drop less than before? (Plus the higher cost of spinning and the lower sell value of unneeded items means that pachinko will see less use overall, anyway.) So any further affection levels beyond that point are suddenly looking like massive long term projects (possibly just buying the 4 white affection items in the shop once or twice each day and saving those up for... what? a year or so to get enough to push one girl from 2 to 3 stars? (blind guess there, didn't try to check the math) Because it feels like the green items are too steeply priced to give them any consideration).

Maybe this new pacing could be excused somewhat if there was a supplemental alternative route (or multiple supplemental options)...

For example, making up a quick idea here, what if each of the three girls that you put on your battle team gained some amount of xp and affection from each fight? (Each one being some percent of the xp that the player receives from the fights. (+1 vote on adding xp gains back into troll fights, by the way.)) There are still limitations there since your pace would be regulated by battle energy (side note: since when has there been a mouseover tooltip on that icon naming it as "combativity"?) and you can only supplement the leveling of three girls at a time that way, but it would be something extra outside of the items. (And it gives a reason to play around with different team configurations, since the combat system itself doesn't really give you any reason to bother.)

What if there was a new type of booster item which allowed that previous idea to expand to giving them a share of all player xp sources (story / missions / contests)? (Potentially in market for kobans only, never showing up in a random drop. I suppose.)

What if there was a new type of booster like the previous idea but granting a bit of affection to your current team each time some mojo is gained? (Again, potentially available only through kobans.)

What if there was a new type of booster item which multiplied all affection gains? Like x2 for each white item activated and x3 for each green item activated, possibly additive with each other if multiple are activated at the same time (for example you'd have a x12 multiplier if you have 4 greens running). (At any rate though, like the previous ideas this might potentially only be available for kobans.)