You seem to completely misunderstand why people dislike the Atma stage. It's because you have no idea when you will progress. It might take 1 more FATE, or 1,000 more FATES. Who knows!? The FATEs themselves are just mindlessly mashing your first 1-4 skills, depending on the area. It's a mind numbing time sink (as opposed to, for example, lock out time sinks we see in other content, or quantity time sinks they could have implemented -- like 20 FATEs in a region = an atma). I haven't heard from anyone complaining about the book stage. Most people know about it from datamining and what not already. It lists definitive requirements for the upgrade. That's what people want. They could be long and tedious as Hell. That they're definitive makes all the difference.