You can get an alternative weapon while you wait. Some of them are actually pretty good. That's what I did with my summoner weapon, anyway.

You might think the Atma grind is horrible, but so is plugging in dozens of materia into a scroll. Pay for it with your wallet, or pay for it with your time, either way it ends up being a worse grind than the Atma are.

I'm saying this as someone who has completed the Atma stage 2 and 7/12 times (lol) as well as a completed novus, and an animus that is halfway through the alexandrite/materia scroll stage.

The whole process is a grind, I really don't understand the whining over JUST the Atma part.