In Legion, the experience is rich because "You obtain your Artifact early on in the Legion experience. This is the weapon you will use throughout the expansion. You will not get weapon drops in Legion." That'll be the only weapon.

I understand your view on the relic.

My thoughts are the relic is the casual method (going by a definition "casual = don't raid") since I don't raid, I only have tomestone and relic weapons as my options. Just as the raid weapons are options for folks who don't want to invest time and gil in the relic.

More options are a good thing because our FFXIV community is made up of different players.

Walling it off would mean it's less of an option for the community especially our non-raider friends who joined in HW.

I spent and continue to spend the "countless hours and gil" for the relic. I don't begrudge that in HW one could start into a new relic arc without the old. The old relic saved me the FATE runs and I still have it as a glamour option. Yay for us who did it. (^_^)

For me, the achievement and journey is just as important. Having done the relic pre-nerf doesn't take anything away from me when someone does it post-nerf. Just like me 'catching up' on the new raids post-nerf never had as epic a feeling and journey as the ones I managed to do pre-nerf (when I was less casual).