From what I heard of the original Relic, it was on par with the raid weapon at the time which lead raiders to complain that raiding wasn't worth the effort since it was so easy to obtain rewards other wise.

I like to mention a comment by a dev in WoW from some years ago. One of the lead Devs on WoW was asked what was the biggest surprise he had found in MMO development. He said that it was players would do what was efficient over what they found fun. Simply put, unbalanced rewards can lead players to do things they find boring even if there is a more enjoyable alternative for them. This can lead to content being abandoned which is a problem.

Further I think people need to understand that not all content works for everyone but they still need to make options for the very wide variety of players. Too much customisation can lead to people who don't want to spend heaps of time experimenting or figuring out what actually works being turned off. Likewise too little leads to players who enjoy customisation to find things boring. Finding this balance is a constant issue for developers and screwing it up can be bad for everyone. Its also usually impossible to create a system that fully satisfies everyone. The Anima weapon is a perfect example of this. I agree (and apparently they also agree) that it is more grindy than is good but at the same time it was developed as a way to get a good weapon that required an investment of time, not overcoming challenging content. There are options for that already. Making it require challenging content defeats the purpose for the weapons in the first place.

There is also a point that the anima weapons, being a time investment like the old relics, were going to have to use old content. Developing new content sufficient for the time requirements for an anima weapon is something they don't have the resources for without cutting back on other content which I don't think anyone wants and I'm not talking about LoV unless you wanted to spend your whole time getting your anima doing minigame style content.

That said I think currently FF14 is too ridged and lacks sufficient customisation. Further the current Job progression is unsustainable due to the fact that we simply cant fit more skills into our skillbars. For many Jobs just adding 5 more skills next expansion simply isn't going to be playable.