1) the fate farming for atma is only to get the base relic atma that gradually upgrades to the relic animus... get past this rng based stage, and the rest is deterministic... atma drop rate seems to be around 4% based on that it took around 300 fates for me to get my relic atma, and I've seen others say they got theirs after around 300 fates as well, give or take a number...
2) this is essentially exactly what people on this forum begged for... they didn't think through what it would mean in practice, and now they bitch about it...
3) as others already pointed out, you can get Wave/Tidal Wave weapons that are equal to, or better, than the animus... gerolt masterworks weapon seem to require running second coil, in addition to soldiery tomes, but chances are the items from second coil can also be a rare reward from ventures (if people already get mog weapons from them, such items are not unthinkable to get...)