I miss my militia gig.

What people aren't mentioning so far is that, other than increasing the final rewards for when the "defence" part started, the "stock-up" part would also reward you. In 1.0 teleports were paid for with anima, which was a self-refreshing currency. You'd cap out at 100 anima and use a certain amount based on how far away the port was. Originally the system was absolutely atrocious but with later fixes and the addition of favourite points and the ability to set both an aetheryte return and an inn room return, it became an excellent system.

Handing in items at the hamlets before the actual event started would give you back anima. It wasn't a lot if you only handed in a few things, but all of the items you could craft or gather could be gathered or crafted in large amounts with little effort. For instance, fishers would hand in Young Indigo Herring, but back then different fish had different catch "caps," so you could catch up to a maximum of 10 young indigo herring from a single reel. It took around 80 to go from 0 anima to 100 anima, so near the end I was able to keep my entire linkshell's anima at maximum for very little effort.

I still have around 55 stacks of young indigo herring. I'm hoping they'll be used for something in the future.