As someone who has 4 level 85 Empyrean weapons, I was also upset that if I wanted to continue to use these with any sort of efficacy, I would have to 99 them. I don't think the below 99 should get boosted as another user pointed out, they are still best in class for level 85 weapons by far. I get that.

Relics, to be honest, are extremely easy now to get to 99. Marrow prices are falling to under 8M on our server, and I was able to solo Dynamis Lord on Rune Fencer with the AF gear, so I imagine small parties will be able to handle ADL with ease now.

The biggest challenge I see is with regard to Empyreans. As VW drops become less and less desirable, we are seeing less and less people doing any VW. And while it's now easy to low-man Uptala or Qilin, it's not easy to land procs in a reasonable amount of time with a small group.

I say do 1 of 3 things for HMP/Dross/Cinder-
-Lower the requirement for the trials
-Increase the drop rate
-Adjust VW so that treasure hunter increases likelyhood of magian trial materials to drop (outside of standard procs)

I'm all about making legendary weapon requirements challenging, but the window of realistically being able to even complete the trials for Empyrean weapons is closing fast.