Well, RME reforging has been around since November of 2013. Originally you could only get singles and pouches of 3-15 from Delve. That's the time I was talking about paying out the nose for RME upgrades. That huge price drop occurred over the course of 3.5 years. The situation was complicated by the fact that at the time, you only needed 300 singles to 119 your weapon as the 10k Afterglow upgrade didn't exist yet. So maybe not a good example to use.
Why is a price drop due to to increased supply okay? I guess I would say because it happened gradually and pretty naturally in a way players are accustomed to. Everyone accepts that things will slowly become easier over time. That's just my opinion though, other people might be okay with one or both. To me, reducing the cost is a lot more palatable than reducing the requirement.
Yes, exactly. A group. Aeonics are balanced by the fact that all your progress needs to be in a group setting with other good players on the right jobs playing on the right schedule. If you have the connections then it's a pretty straightforward process. For a lot of players, an Aeonic is completely off the table because of this. It's really hard to compare Relics/Mythics/Empyreans to Aeonics because the investment can vary so much from player to player. It's not just gil or time spent playing (although it can be), it's about connections and networking.
Basically I'm just saying that Aeonics aren't as easy as you think for everybody and therefore shouldn't be used as a point of reference when looking at how to adjust the other weapons. I know you're saying that the efforts should be balanced based on strength, but you're basing it all on Aeonic effort and I feel you're vastly discounting it, especially for players who don't have ready-made networks of capable players at their disposal.
Oh, I did want to touch on the expectation that every player would be expected to have every important weapon for any job they came on. I think right now, a Dunna is what you'd expect every pickup GEO to have. Is it better for the game if the new baseline becomes an Idris? I'm not so sure it is.