My friends and I were discussing how grade I materia is now worth its weight in gold, since it's more difficult to spirit bond lower level gear after the level sync change. The lower level materia is still use for ARR relics, but it's priced any new players who might think about melding it as soon as they can right out of the market on most servers.

Most of the other materia seem to have alternate means of generation within the game. Grade 6-8 are directly purchasable from various NPCs. Grades 2-4 are regularly brought back from airships and submersibles. (At this point, you might as well just NPC vendor Grade III, since it doesn't sell for any more than its vendor price.)

Is there no other way to generate Grade I materia in the game outside of spiritbonding?