Hey! First of all, I’m not gonna start learning how to use an axe just to be able to kill runners with a regen hat. I’m a sword user and I’d like to stay that way. It’s unfair to tell sword users to learn something new just to have regen hats in their advantage again rather than getting rid of the disadvantage itself.
I think we all have our little annoyances with every game. It's an entire gamemode with various items and things at play to accommodate for different playstyles, because people play in different ways. Some may need the regen hat and don't want to change that, much like you don't want to change away from using swords.
Blind towers are incredible OP. Lets remove them.
Can't even walk across a bridge without having to make sure no one is throwing fireballs? Remove them!
Bow? Gone!
Clay blocks make breaking beds take too long. Remove them.
Enderpearls? Unfair, I broke the bridge and now they're just teleported to my island. Away!
But then... where do we stop stripping it down? What will be left? I don't think anything in particular is something that you can't fight against. Like, your frustration with the regen hats.. I don't think they're a big deal at all. The hat doesn't give someone the power to run away, they'd be able to do that without the hat too. If you can't catch someone with an hat, you're gonna struggle catching them regardless. Change strategy; maybe you can try to catch them off guard, or corner them or use crit hits to slow them down, fireballs to stop their speed, a teammate to circle around them, etc etc.
Plenty ways to deal with it. You can stop players from running away and you can do more damage with the sword in the time the hat needs to heal them. I like the challenge these various items brings to the game, would be a shame to throw it out because "it's hard to deal with when I don't try new strategies or weapons against it."