Question for the people who don't dislike the 2nd relic step

[ReynTime]

The arguments in favor of this using 'flavor' as a reason are some of the worst arguments I have ever seen.
If the lack of specific tasks vs tomes is just "flavor", then you can apply that logic to every other content in the game. Jobs, dungeons, gear, FATEs, bosses, enemies, sidequests. Let's reduce everything to what objectively sets them apart... which is not much. I'm sure that wouldn't make the experience more shallow at all!

As for them re-using the relic model for the Zodiac Weapon Sage, the game at that stage relied heavily on re-using models from 1.0 or FFXI. Likely because SE was very cautious about giving a large budget for a game that had already failed once before.

The game still does this with gear and with enemy models. To this day we still get bosses and enemies that use the same model and animations of enemies introduced in 1.0 with minor surface alterations masking it. Only trial and raid bosses are entirely original.