Would be more bearable if you crept up in single digits of ilvls as you grinded. So instead of trading in the full 80/80 etc lot of items, you traded in a 1/4 at a time or something. So even doing it casually every few weeks you go up an ilvl or two.

In ARR relic, players who joined late were using sub par ilvl relics towards the end of 2.x