Personally, I think the relic grind was too much but now it's too little. I think I'd prefer ARR with it's own fight at the end but overall the grind should be less tedious.

Give me an exploratory zone where I can chip away at it and make me fight a (4/8 man?) boss at the end for the final material so it means something. Doesn't have to be a super hard boss. Just don't make it mindless like it is now. And don't make it where you can farm stuff outside of that content. That's just counter-productive, honestly.