Is There a Way to Make Eureka [b]Not[/b] Suck?

[Midareyukki]

but first I have to deal with the mindless slog and that's where the roadblock is.

Unfortunately, "mindless slog" is kind of what the devs intend for it to be.

Not just from a design standpoint (it's meant to emulate FF11's levelling experience), but marketing as well (grinds exist to tie you to the game, let's be real).

So I doubt there's going to be much changing that.

Not saying that you're wrong in feeling that way. I WISH they had done a lot more with these areas. But I feel like SE just made it clear what they wanted out of it, and they don't really tend to go back to old content and make it any better. At least, not without a complete overhaul.

Plus, it doesn't factor into any gameplay part anymore, as it's its own isolated thing.