Those "rewards" you speak of are materia, 1 framer kit, 1 orchestrion scroll and 1 mount. Savage version has materia and 1 housing item.
People want gear because the content is savage equivalent, and parties are often enforcing 650 ilvl. So why should there be no gear rewards? Do you think it will break devs' sacred formula of gearing or what?
Do you think that people would still run raids like they do today if they removed gearing and only left mount, minion and a scroll? I hope you're not that naive.
Then people will be happy. Raids do have weekly lockout and they're fine, what about it? Why do you think it wouldn't work for criterion? Just put some upgrade mats to criterion and participation will sky rocket.
A lot of things in
that panel didn't age well.