People will, more often than not, prefer the tome system over random drops. This is largely because drops come from 3 places:

1.) Dungeons
2.) 24-man Raids
3.) 8-man Raids

2 out of the 3 of these are on a weekly lockout and the other is completely faceroll. RNG is no fun at all when the content itself isn't fun - you wouldn't want to run a dungeon over and over and over to get that one piece of loot you wanted because it would be a chore, which isn't how a game should be.

The content that works best atm is, imo, EX Primals. RNG system w/ tokens to circumvent RNG, extra fun loot, and fun fights (even if they've gotten quite dumbed down lately they're still fun mechanically). If dungeons and raiding could be as appealing as EX Primals I think we'd have a more enjoyable end game.