Trends in content types and faux difficulty

[TerahValeth]

I really dont consider it a punishment because I don't punish myself into running something hundreds of times. You know what I did to get my Ifrit weapons? Did Ifrit about 2-5 times a day, depending on how fun the party was. Within 3 days (so 15 runs max) I had the 2 weapons I wanted, an ifrit weapon i didnt want, and a handful of totems. Luck? Absolutely. Was it fun? Absolutely. Punishing? Absolutely not. The fault lies with players approaching luck-based systems the wrong way. By wrong I, of course, mean the most punishing, masochistic, and ineffective way possible...

For starters, let me make it clear that I have no problem w/ the Primals, the drop rate isn't great, but it's decent enough, couple that w/ the "totem system" and you have a formula that at least takes skill into account. My problem lies w/ content like Aurum, Cutters, and the Hamlets (the trend that the game seems to be evolving towards) where the drop rate is so terribly low that skill takes a back seat to factors like "can I run the dungeon 40+ hours a week". Our ls really only has event nights 2-3 times a week, we only do the dungeon 5-6 times in an event day. The problem is that THAT level of devotion to the task at hand DOESN'T increase the odds, and SKILL doesn't increase the odds. What motivation does anyone have to try to be the best they can be at their class/job if you can half-ass it and get lucky in a pickup party? I just want it so luck isn't the ONLY factor (or even the primary factor) I'm not saying it should be eliminated by any means, but it should take a back seat to skill, not the other way around.

Edit: oh yeah, and let's not forget Stronghold bosses, where you get a really low percentage drop rate on the key, which then has (presumably) a 1/8 chance to drop to you, and then you get to bang your head against the RNG for the chest. Let's be generous and say the key drop and chest have a 10% chance each of dropping (assuming anything from chest other than crap), that's 1/10 chance for key, times 1/8 chance you get the key over the other players, and 1/10 that the chest drops the desired item, that gives you a 0.125% chance every time the boss is killed that you'll get the item you're going after (and I'm pretty sure the drop rates are lower than 10%). This is SE being lazy to prolong content, where the content should stand on it's own, it should take a long time to get through the content because it's challenging.