I will always feel the drop rate is better in ARR than in 1.x. Imagine fighting Ifrit (who was much...much harder in 1.x) over coming this hurdle and getting slapped with dark matter. and you might not even get that either, one person "might" get a weapon, but the odds were pretty crap, then divided by how many weapons could drop...yeah, I got lucky my first run, got my Ifrit sword. Ran Ifrit over 100 times in 1.x saw one other drop, was the bow. In ARR, I finally got my cane, but I will never complain about what drops after the torture of the 1.x drop system.
Oh yeah, and while you could also get totems, one person "might" get that totem, if it showed up at all, and then you needed 15 of those to get your weapon for the potential thousands of runs you did.