The patch appears to have increased chocobo xp by only 20%. I was hoping they had changed xp rates to greatly increase rewards for winning with a much higher bonus for 1st-3rd and then slight increases for 4th-6th and nothing for 7th and 8th (to prevent dead-head grinding).

As it stands, it just doesn't progress quickly enough to give gameplay variety. The variety is there, but since you'll literally have to race the same 3 courses 100 or more times to get to the next track layout, it gets dull. This is a mini-game with only aesthetic items available for winning, so I don't know why they made it such a grind. If it were a single-player game, you'd get multiple ranks up for a single win at lower levels and even at high levels you'd always get a rank up for a first-place win.