Some areas seem terrible for drop rates, Lower La Noscea constantly has me doing 25+ FATEs per medal. It also seems that FATEs which sync your level at 50 or above have given me close to no medals.

SE needs to adopt a smart RNG algorithm. Something with a baseline drop chance that increases each time the drop doesn't happen, and then resets to baseline when a drop happens. The variance between total FATEs completed for players with all the weapons is ranging between 700 and 900 FATEs completed. That's a really massive gap.