First, I'm sure this has been asked before, and I know there are mods for this, BUT....
Why is pine resin so rare in this game? I live in a area with plenty of pine trees and I can assure you that almost every tree has some resin clumps on it. Some species of Pine in the American south west have such heavy resin production that it is a forest fire hazard and people are not only allowed but encouraged to remove it. This default 1% chance with no regrow and no growth on player planted trees seems like an unrealistic and arbitrary restriction on a necessary survival resource. Common Pines are typically 10-20% resin by dry weight. The practice of scarring trees to produce resin has long been a practice throughout the world, I know there is a mod for this, but why isn't it part of the base game?
Does this come from a misconception about Pine trees? Or is it just intended to drive exploration and busy work in game?
on a side note, the same could be said for flax. I commonly have to travel 2000+ blocks multiple times to find even a single flax plant in my games. Again, in my real world area wild wheatgrass is fairly common. While not directly analogous to flax it is a similar concept. Is this just arbitrary to drive exploration, or am I just incredibly unlucky?