I personally had no issues with the relic for the most part.

My main issues were only two things:
a) Light Grind
b) Crafter involvement

The first is meh because doing it any other way than A1S grinding is, uh... painful. More painful than tomes ever were, since you can't even shake things up by playing a different job, which also means you gotta deal with DPS queue times instead of hopping on your tank for that sweet instant queue. It also sucks that PotD, Feast and several other contents don't progress the light at all. Neither does 50s content, which also reduces variety. Because of that, it's the only step that really felt like a grind to me.

The second is a recurring annoyance: You either know an endgame crafter or you gotta pay scalping prices. In the future, alternative DoW/DoM means to acquire the items would be appreciated.