When you started may or may not be skewing your view. Between the time each step first came out and now, the Relic quest line has undergone several step difficulty reductions.
Zenith: Costs less tomes
Atma: Drop rate buffed considerably
Animus: Books cost less tomes (and this is the only truly hair-pull annoying step)
Novus: Alexandrite gathering was buffed in every way over time except the once-per-day Expert roulette staying once-per-day
Nexus: Light gathering rate doubled
Zodiac: Not quite buffed, but when you finish the quest once, you can freely get the quests again to re-gather the items from dungeons casually while running content for any other reason. Until then, the other potential hair puller.
If you've been involved with making one from scratch back when it was Relic +1 by name, then it's DEFINITELY easier now, no worries. If you came in after a while and are still zoned out after said buffs to the system, though, hope you really like the Zeta you have now.
Zeta: Already horribly easy to begin with, pretty sure its light value rate was boosted like the Nexus' step