I never really looked at Sekiro that way. I didn't find the upgrades all that essential. It's more pattern recognition and timing. The upgrades might grant you an extra few hits, or some unique attack that might work as a brief distraction for them, but for the most part, I found the game to be more demanding of your actual skills than anything else. It ain't "Dark Souls", in that you can't always mitigate the difficulty through grinding and whatnot. You hit a limit on your "skills", and there's nothing more you can do than just beat it. You can't phone a friend, and you can't grind. You eventually just run into walls, and nothing will save you but your own reactions.
Yeah, I would've liked a counter while in the grab, to at least give you a chance to do something. Especially considering how ridiculously powerful those moves usually are.
My only real gripe with Sekiro is it's somewhat outlandish difficulty in some areas, brought on by cheap enemy placement and mobs. I think it went a little overboard in some areas. Take that fat drunken boss guy, for instance. Does he really need a mob of like twelve enemies to deal with, complete with cheap ass projectile enemies who will pot shot you relentlessly? It's ridiculous.
In the end though, I just accept it. Every scenario in the game is beatable by traditional means, and there is a logic to it all. It's just a bit too much for me to power through it. I got to a point in that game where I was still gradually progressing, but I wasn't having any fun in conquering it's challenges. Win or lose, I was always pissed off and annoyed, so I just set it aside. Not for me.