The reason most people were/are willing to do certain events that they don't like, is because they want the best possible gear. Any endgame event with incredibly low drop rates only serves its purpose of drawing people to continue doing the event as long as the gear obtained from it is the best.
The success of Salvage was that the Salvage sets were the best for certain jobs (at least certain pieces), so people went through the event, even if they didn't like it or its horrible drop rates, and the expense of creating the gear. The fact that the gear is no longer the best shows directly in the unpopularity of the event outside of mythic upgraders or those looking to make money off said upgraders. (For completion's sake, I still have several pieces of gear I'd like to finish, but nobody I know wants to do it at all, even to take out a force-popped NM to complete a piece.)
The success of Abyssea gear wasn't just how "easy" (I use the term loosely) it was to obtain gear, it was combined with the fact that people knew it wasn't the "ultimate" gear. The effort required and time spent was proportional to the expected performance of the gear and future prospects of its usefulness.
The problem with the current "new endgame" events, is that we still have another level cap increase on the horizon, and a whole new selection of "the best gear" close at hand. Who in their right mind would put themselves through events like that for a year or more with those drop rates for something that will only be the best for a limited time (for any significant period of time... longer than the time it took to obtain it) which they know they'll have to replace -- perhaps within a year!.
Most of the current rewards have extremely low drop rates and yet, they provide only small increases in performance, and we all expect better gear to be revealed at/after level 99. These "intermediate" endgame events need better drop rates for gear that is certainly not going to be the best.
Real "final" endgame events with real "ultimate" gear can have fairly low drop rates without overly angering most players, since this is what we've been conditioned to expect from FFXI's "random" drops.
However, for players who play the game for fun, not for work, an even better system for endgame should invoke feelings of accomplishment rather than the thrill of the lottery, knowing that by our effort and time spent, we're making progress little by little. This is why in-game point systems (and even the Magian Trials) are better than random drop systems for rewards, in my opinion - and while it may not keep a person with only one job leveled busy as long as they'd like, many players have multiple jobs, increasing the points they need to gear up each individual job.
Anyway, that's my analysis of the game's design moving forward, and hopefully the intended audience understands the reasoning presented.