The problem is nothing goes anywhere without forked because everything is basically a dead end without it leading to an endless treadmill that goes nowhere
Levelling phantom jobs? - so you can get mastery stacks to do the same fates but do a little more damage
Going for arcanauts gear? - +2 is locked behind forked anyway so you are kinda stuck halfway
Something to break the endless fate chain? - you guessed it…..forked
What goal are you are going for without forked, where does OC go? Everything just feels pointlessly futile without that piece to cycle the content. The game had a defined endgame without raiding, OC has no goal without forked or a CLL equivalent, it just sorta exists