You have to ask yourself what the function of having a 'relic' is in the first place. There are so many parallel weapon systems in place (tome/deep dungeon/exploratory/primal/savage/criterion/ultimate) that provide alternative gearing options depending on the type of content that you prefer to do. There are tome weapons already in place. Why do you need a second weapon where the progression is only based off of tome trade-ins? It seems completely redundant. If they renamed the 'tome weapon' to 'relic' and created a second set of weapons specific to exploratory content, would that suddenly make it all feel better?

Perhaps the solution is to just drop the 'relic' terminology and let people upgrade multiple weapon sets across their respective preferred content paths. Nothing will change from a gearing perspective, and then people will stop fretting over being 'forced' to do content.