I don't care about S-E's imagination or FFXI's crafting system. What I care about is observable evidence. We have a running joke in our shell about how we get rewarded for the rare wipe or near-wipe situation with DL drops, because DL ignores your performance. We've wiped to Mistress, finished anyway, and gotten a DL piece after 20 perfect runs over two days without any drops at all. We've done 15 perfect runs in a day and gotten three pairs of DL gloves. It's random, and it's a very low droprate overall.

I'm sure other LSs can corroborate this observation.