I think the idea that SE could have done this a little bit different and still kept the grind intact. It's a problem of perceived fairness. If Tommy has been trying to get an atma in a zone for 10hrs and Billy comes along and gets it in 30mins, then it is perceived that the result is unfair. Tommy obviously thinks he put in more work and should have gotten it.

There are other ways that this system could have been setup to avoid this problem. One suggestion that I saw in a similar thread was to make it so that players did a certain number of fates, the idea in question was set at 50, and then reward players with their atma. You would still have the grind portion of the quest, but the visual progression that people are asking for would be there. This is similar to why you don't see so many threads about the book portion of the quest.