I guess it boils down to how much and what type of work people are willing to put into things like Black Belt. The people who really want it will still work their butts off for it, but now instead of long waits and fighting for claims, it's doing fights for spawn items and hoping for item drops. Personally I think the new system is more considerate of players who don't have the time to camp monsters that spawn about once a day, and I like that. But that's just my opinion, and I've only been an FFXI player since Nov. 2010.