Why is everyone so against letting hardcores have their content too? (yes, most of this game is very much catered to Casuals)

A good example is the Joyeuse in FFXI. I was a Red mage and really wanted that sword. But the mob was a long spawn and constantly camped. This ensured that the sword was rare. What is wrong with that? Personally, I think it's really boring and uninteresting if everyone in the game has "Excaliber +10 sword of epic uber-slaying". There rightfully should be equipment that takes significant amounts of time invested to get.

I had plenty of Casual friends (I'm "mid-core") who would get the time of death of NMs and narrow down the time they had to spend to a couple hours at most. That should be doable. And even barring that, they could make a similar-but-slightly-different version of the item that can be bought with some sort of guild point or token.