Nael wasn't removed from the game for very long. Nael was added as a fight back in ARR and was roughly the same in terms of difficult as the 1.0 fight.

So I'm not really sure why there's this weird push to act like players don't deserve the earrings when anyone who has played this game for any length of time has very likely beat numerous bosses that were equal to or harder than Nael's 1.0 battle.