Why is "It's something to do" apparently a valid defense?

[Alahra]

It's a bit of both. I feel like they trimmed out the parts that were well received by the playerbase (such as the intial relic quest and practically everything attached to that) and tossed it aside

It's a mix of both, yeah.

And they were going to disappoint some players no matter what. While I loved that Titan HM was part of the original 2.0 relic, I know several players that hated it. I also didn't like how short the Relic felt originally, as it made them ultimately feel "cheap" after I had one for every level 50 job, and it's as a result of feedback along those lines that we got the Relic+Zodiac extended grind in ARR and the present Anima questline.

The Relic 2.0 quest was not universally loved, so to say that they tossed out something "the players" liked is a bit inaccurate. Some players liked it, but enough other players didn't like it that they went in another direction.