I actually agree with the op. but at the same time as the majority I find the content a bit boring and random, I really liked the magian weapons from xi, especially when you had a dual wield job, you could get 2 completely different weapons from the same base weapon and had a good long term goal, but as we all know what worked in other past MMO's doesn't work right now, I played xi a few months ago and had to start from scratch because I lost my account, so while I missed the grind and remembered it as something fun, it wasn't the same this last time, actually I was bored mid way.

In the other hand the relic reborn quest was too easy, with the needed tombstones you could get your relic in one day with a static, so we need a balance, like for example the FATES, I really don't mind doing those at all, in fact it was a really smart idea to get us out from Mor Dhona and give us what a lot of us were asking, open world content and a chance to explore all the awesome details in every area, add to that the new ppls from PS4 getting help from veteran players to level up and see the game less lonely.

A good balance to the FATE part for the Zodiak weapons would be if the requirements to get the Atma could be doing all the FATES available in the zone, ok this would speed up the process, but they could always add more quests to balance the grind, it would be way better like this, because people like me that are mid core and cant play many hours as we want can focus on getting something done little by little, so everytime you log in you can go to a zone and try completing your missing FATES while you wait for Duty Finder or a Party to fill while queuing in party finder.

For NM's I would love having some solo fights likes the one we had in Beta, were several complained about the difficulty, you actually needed a good strat and good gear to have a chance beating the boss, I think it was a lvl 15 fight, you could actually feel the achievement, right now the only place you can feel that is in Coil and some extreme primals, wouldn't hurt having that in this quests.