In short:

1. Raise lockout timers = overall raise in drop rates.

2. Trade in unwanted stuff for GC seals.

3. Garuda's 100% drop rate outside of weapons isn't good for other content because 100% drop rate on Darklight gear wouldn't make much sense without scaling down it's stats (basically making it not worth it.) Every MMO tend to negate almost every gear previously released in a new patch due to it having a high droprate and to give incentive to do the new dungeon. A sense of progress is basically completing these dungeons 100% excluding drop rates, since you get achivement for killing the main boss(es) < That's the progress, the gear is basically what makes the deal sweet.

4. Relic weapons isn't that bad considering the 3 main points:
-You had since May to work on prereqs before knowing it was regarding "relic weapons or af weapons", most just assumed it would be for it even though we had no clear confirmation that it would be regarding af weapons in particular.
-Most everyone had a double+ melded class weapon or other weapon since it was possible to meld things, so the requirement of this shouldn't have been a problem which is more than likely why SE threw this in, because it's what people were already doing. Not everyone but these weapons aren't for everybody.
-You can't complete it now, so you can take your time with it and go with the flow, rather than rush through it and burn yourself out.

So in all actuality, SE needs to change a lot about the content start with lockout/cooldown timers since that above all is the reason the RNG is extreme. Every MMO has RNG tied to it in some fashion, but unlike some, you can spam dungeons and 'hard content (primals nonburn setups)' in this game, a lot of MMOs have at least a few hour lockout.