Non-tomestone ways to get to item level 460? Crafting?

[Moomba33]

Crafting would let you create i510 gear which would be enough to finish the patch quests.

However it would take a fair bit of investment as not only would you need to level your crafters you would also need to craft end game crafting gear and meld it in order to be able to create the latest battle gear.

To be honest it would probably cheaper just to buy i510 gear directly from the marketboard instead of leveling and gearing your own crafters. Try searching "exarchic" on the marketboard and see how much pieces for your job are going for.

Edit: The final main scenario dungeon for Shadowbringers requires i490 to enter. You can use any Allegory Tomes you've gotten from required content to buy i490 Crystarium gear in Eulmore which could help you save save some gil even if you don't want to grind extra tomes.
Revelation tomes can get you i520 gear but you are less likely to have enough to buy anything without some grinding.

Edit 2: I know you've said you aren't interested in burdening people in raids, but I feel it's worth mentioning that Eden Normal and the Nier alliance raids are fairly forgiving and clearing them once each could get you a lot of free tomes and gear without feeling like a grind.

Edit 3: I completely forget about Hunts since I don't do them much myself. Hunts are world bosses that drop a lot of tomes when killed, most servers organize "hunt trains" to kill a bunch at a time. They aren't instanced and are very low pressure, you could try joining a party for those.

[Omedon]

Crafting would let you create i510 gear which would be enough to finish the patch quests.

However it would take a fair bit of investment as not only would you need to level your crafters you would also need to craft end game crafting gear and meld it in order to be able to create the latest battle gear.

To be honest it would probably cheaper just to buy i510 gear directly from the marketboard instead of leveling and gearing your own crafters. Try searching "exarchic" on the marketboard and see how much pieces for your job are going for.

Edit: The final main scenario dungeon for Shadowbringers requires i490 to enter. You can use any Allegory Tomes you've gotten from required content to buy i490 Crystarium gear in Eulmore which could help you save save some gil even if you don't want to grind extra tomes.
Revelation tomes can get you i520 gear but you are less likely to have enough to buy anything without some grinding.

Edit 2: I know you've said you aren't interested in burdening people in raids, but I feel it's worth mentioning that Eden Normal and the Nier alliance raids are fairly forgiving and clearing them once each could get you a lot of free tomes and gear without feeling like a grind.

Edit 3: I completely forget about Hunts since I don't do them much myself. Hunts are world bosses that drop a lot of tomes when killed, most servers organize "hunt trains" to kill a bunch at a time. They aren't instanced and are very low pressure, you could try joining a party for those.

Thank you for all this input! What I'm potentially going to do is level my trusts so I can farm dungeons leading to the most current, then farm that most current, then buy minimal market board purchases to put me over the hump.

Honestly, it's kind of ridiculous that Anamnesis on its own, farmed to completion, won't minimum gear me for Heroes' Gauntlet, but it seems it will get me close!

But yes, I do love trusts that much and dislike random duties with strangers that much (I'm a tank) to take that long road on my own time, be it now or much later on! Thank you for the suggestions!