Your post exemplifies the fatal flaws of many "Old style" linkshells, and why the vast majority of the game's best players now want nothing to do with them whatsoever. Fact is, we wised up. We learned to appreciate the value of our time. If we were in a linkshell to work, and we weren't getting properly compensated, then the linkshell was taking more from us than it was giving out. Whether it's a matter of efficiency, or poor/tilted distribution systems, people got tired of selling themselves off for less than they were worth.

Keep in mind that I'm completely ignoring "fun". If people have fun doing these things, they should do them. But I am working under the assumption that these things are not fun, as ADL is not fun, and people are doing work for DKP so that they can buy some reward later.

In this case, it is straight up bad practice for a linkshell to do an event where they spend more in man-hours than they obtain in loot on average. If Odin costs you 2x18 = 36 Man-hours at an average cost of 500k/manhour and you average out 15M per Odin in Abjurations, then you're much better off not doing Einherjar at all and letting your members buy Ebodies/Mbodies/etc from other shells. So yes, some events are more lucrative than others. But frankly, that's not important. If the linkshell makes more in profit than they put in in man-hours, they make a net profit. If they don't, they shouldn't be doing the event.

The real issue when it comes to large linkshells in the difference of the worth of any individual member's man-hour. A good player can easily push 500k+/manhour, but a shit player may be sitting on 0 or 10k average. People still made linkshells for horribly inefficient events because it allowed them to make a net profit at the expense of the rest of their shell. When I'm worth 500k/manhour and Joe Shmoe is worth 10k/manhour, and he makes a linkshell with me to do an event that pays out 250k/manhour, Joe is making a huge profit while I'm sitting there wasting my time for him. This is why linkshells were popular and kept doing these "variably lucrative" events even though the members did not enjoy it. Linkshell events were FFXI socialism at its finest. Everybody's work was worth the same amount, even if it wasn't.

Again, I'm leaving out fun. If the fun of the event and the people is worth the loss in net gil to you, by all means do it. That's what I do, personally. But ADL is not fun. You are not recouping fun on that gil you lose. All you have then is the numbers.