Before Legend ranks: Playable and quite enjoyable, matches were balanced mostly. After Hitting Legend: Haven't had really any fun playing, no matter the augment or turret; while you're dealing very small damage on your opponent with a legendary augment because the enemy has  Excelsior and Defender and Armadillo, that same enemy is melting or one shooting you with some specific turret/augment. So most of the matches have 5 players like those. Are you seeing an isida vampire with defender and excelsior on a hovering hull coming at you from the other side of the map? Well you're dead, you shoot at him multiple times and won't kill him, he gets close to you and begins to heal. Did a Scorpion with tornado see you? Ahh if you're not behind some cover then it is over, the countless rockets with splash damage will very likely kill you. Striker enemy is aiming at you? prepare to die before you can blink. Railgun excalibur? I don't even need to explain.   It really takes a lot of effort to make TO go from a fun and enjoyable game which you recommend to your school friends to some boring tasteless "game". Btw to fix all the problems you need to nerf magnum even more, buff tesla, buff scorpion, buff all emp augments, buff stellarator, buff excalibur, buff all striker augments, make isida vampire heal 15k hp per hit, buff hammer and give all augments at least 15 bullets, make Excelsior give 300% extra health, make defender give a bonus of 500% armor, nerf twins, nerf ricochet, nerf smoky, nerf magnum again, nerf the not yet released Tsunami turret as well, nerf firebird, buff freeze damage (it is too weak trust), make gauss status augments apply to all enemies on the map, make crusader and all hovering hulls better. To finish the fix for the game, make Armadillo cost 3 billion crystals to max, make new features similar to Trophies where you need 5 million reputation for something that is weaker than most other things.

Ok, but i don't see how that is related to my point. Nevertheless I will answer your question. Gaining profit is not a necessary condition to have fun, so some players don't take golds for profit they just do for the fun of it. Just like Parkour players, they keep wasting supplies for 0 profit but they keep doing it because thats how they have fun playing Tanki.  Some players do take golds for the profit even if their garage is maxed out, maybe because they want to feel safe if they needed to spend crystals for supplies or a new turret and a new module. Even when you are rich, having more money is always nice. The motive is not simple, so it is always a mix of both for all players, they play for fun and also they play for the profit.

if i was that kind of person, i'd say that the modern events require a whole lot of crystals to even get something decent. but because i'm still a nub with 3 mk7-0 setups and a few 30% prots, personally i wouldn't say that. @Baal the logic behind everything is simple: me like box. hopper od designed to take much box. me hate hopper.

i mean they got all their prots fully maxed along with all turrets and hulls and everything literally

What do you mean by that?