1500 plates is a terrible number. Anyone who thinks it's fine are people that sat in abyssea for days farming crour to buy the plates which probably meant camping VW zones to buy them at the source. If plates were a 100% drop and didn't take up the "good" slot in VW and actually dropped from more than T3 jeuno/zilart and T6 jeuno, then maybe 1500 would be reasonable.
I would much rather build a relic and leave it at 95 than blow 150-200 mil gil on ONE trial. The current price on siren for riftdross/cinder is 1.5mil x 60 is 90 mil which is still cheaper than the 95 trial.

The relic and mythic 99 trials suck too, but at least if you somehow manage to get 18 people to help you, the weapons get added ws damage. Empyreans get a few base damage and stats.