First off: some drawback cards do not count as drawback cards for the quests that require you to only equip items with drawback cards. This includes, but is not necessarily limited to: Arcane Curse Ill-fitting Armor In another case, it's more of a balance issue: Loner. Loner is so horrendously damaging to yourself that items that have it are simply unusable, because loner counts enemies as well as friends in the all characters within 2 steps clause. This card has hit me for 12+ damage. This is simply way too much of a drawback card to ever consider using. It needs to be changed to either: only count allied characters, or completely replace the effect with something else(like make it an attach, duration 1, cannot move into contact with a character this turn).
I personally figured just letting your armor stop the damage could make it at least usable depending on how good the item with it in its suit is. But you are absolutely correct having a card that takes half your life is not a option on any character.
Loner is so scary that I automatically sell any item with it on. There's a Divine Skill with two Loner drawbacks on it, so that's been flung far, far away.
I fixed Arcane Curse and Ill-fitting armor but Demonic Miasma looked OK to me. What item did you see get knocked back?
Oops, bad memory strikes again. I probably had it mixed up with another case of arcane curse. Sorry Jon, looks like I cried wolf on Demonic Miasma.