I agree on the purchasing Skirmish pieces with Bayld, Maybe those Skirmishes only have a chance to drop the new weapons, and the Rewards would be "Midrium Ore" rather than "midrium ingots" like advanced smirkishes, so on so forth.
Or they could just add a Set of the currently obtainable Skirmish items to Inventor's Coalition for say, 100,000 Bayld, So while very high, you'd have a reason and goal when you're punching Crickets or Roots. Personally I did have a goal, the Peacekeeper body armor, but thanks to a bullshit voting system All i got to look at was really terrible weapons with a new coat of paint. *grumblegrumble*.
However, I have purchased the ~4-5 Pieces of armor i need from whats available, and even the Bayld SMN Staff (Cause im too lazy for Magian and it was easier)... Now im sitting at about 3k Bayld and decreasing reasons as to why bother getting more lol.
I admit, There are way to many forced walls with this expansion, the fact no one even knows how to begin the second Mission (it starts with the guy in Pioneer's Coalition, something about a banquet), and the fact no one has a clue how to progress toward Nakuuls says something.
I admit the expansion has a lot of flaws, and half of its out-of-box content is really hard to access, or just lackluster. I think that they had a lot on their plates (Expansion zones, Skirmish, new 2hrs, Play as a monster) to the point it was all too spread out and they didnt really have a lot of time to focus on the expansion.
Personally I still like the expansion, its fun for me, and I have things to do in it I just got little time to do it. I never expected this content to be remotely casual friendly as it was designed as 99 player content which means you're not going to be able to phone this one in like Abyssea.
Honestly, This is the most casual friendly expansion to date. Quests spell out their locations, A slew of CRAFTABLE level 99 Equipment that is amazingly good and easy to obtain (cant blame SE on crafters price gouging), most of which are clear improvements to anything else available short of R/M/E... And armor thats fantastic and super easy to obtain. These new sets even beat some old Best-in-slot pieces and are super casual to obtain.
This entire expansion introduced a lot of casual-friendly content, and some Hard-core friendly content. I just wish when they looked into "hardcore" content, they didn't think to themselves "Hmmm, How much of an unwarranted and Bullsh*t "Luck" factor can we shovel into this?".