Part of the problem is that I think SE underestimated how many players were going to be doing these all at once and almost all of them for the same reward in the end. They assumed Alexandrite is what most people would focus on but it's not. Even still, at 400 marks for alexandrite there is still some grinding involved.

However, once everyone gets their sands (FC member is almost done getting his second, or has it by now), the amount of people doing this will die down.