A lot of things need to just take less time to obtain...
Mythic weapons are a good example. For many jobs, they aren't very good. However, for some, it's like class defining, and the difference between having one and not having one is insane. A great example is Nirvana, which pushes Avatars to level 121, and has Blood Pact damage +40% on it... and that's just two of the insane stats it has on it. The difference between a Summoner with Nirvana and without Nirvana is ridiculous. It puts the job on a whole other level.
I want Nirvana, but looking at the requirements... it's just not worth it. No one should have to go through that anymore... hours, days, weeks, months of work. Claustrum and Hvergelmir aren't even options in comparison.
While the amount of effort to get it is
staggering and the time it takes is crazy, what's worse is the fact that everything is
time gated. I can't even work at it at my own pace because I will constantly get stopped. That's not to say that simply removing the time gates would be the remedy... because that's still an enormous amount of work.
It's really demoralizing, and almost makes me not want to play. For SMN, it's a gigantic leap in power that you can basically consider yourself to never have. The amount of effort it takes makes it basically "impossible" to obtain, and yet, it is FAR, FAR beyond anything else in power. Nothing even comes close. I could understand if it's a drop off a really difficult boss, but it's not, it's just a gigantic long chore you have to exhaust days of your life on.
How is that "fun?"