It wasn't harder per se, it was just an enormous money and time sink... really enormous money and time sink @_@.
I'm not sure how things have changed since they jiggled about with dynamis stuff (I haven't played XI in over 2 years now), but before then it took a heck of a long time and a lot of gil. (I think if math serves me well it would take almost 2 years of doing dynamis every 3 days to get enough currency to upgrade the weapon D: )