I think its fine where it is right now true it is kinda Grundy but I don't mind that having good gear ha or at least ma on your lvl with food makes gathering much easier and faster the higher your gathering rate is the faster you gonnal lvl cause of more chains and less fails also food helps a lot the thing a lot of people forget is the importance of hq items and MATERIA in your gear you can easli get exstra 20 gathering succes rate (lvl 28here minner(low cause was buddy beating titan) ) simply by ha items materia and food what makes lvling so much faster also another thing people forget is that we basicly got 2 gathering profesions (im not counting fishing cause you can do qitout it for most things) for like 8 crafting profesions so Ye gathering has to be slow so we can actully supply a decent amount of materials the fact that we gather 1-2 even 3 stacks of a item to lvl up isn't so bad cause if you know what to gather and plan ahead you will make a lot of gill