the fact that you passively accept this as being good or acceptable for any next-gen mmo shows just how ignorant anyone who believes this truly is. Repetitive time sinks =/= pleasing content, properly designed content, challenging content, good overall content. Being a no-life gamer myself I understand what it feels like to do hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of runs to obtain a complete BiS set of gear. I did HNMs from 2003-2008 in FFXI. I know that feel bro. I'm doing it again in instanced content in FFXIV. It's BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRING AS FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.
There are companies and developers who are trying to mix up the norm in endgame MMO content these days. Whether its psuedo-changes to the system or not they are at least making a step forward. SE has learned little from FFXI and the games that have come after it.
Maybe they're saving it all for 2.0?
http://i.imgur.com/kyIwQ.png