Saying that there were worse gear grinds in the past in no way justifies this poor reward system. Progress is a valuable goal, and one which has been embraced across the board in this very game - except in these encounters.

Yes, you can spam this fight, but if you calculate average amount of time required to invest to get a drop, you'll see that it is far less rewarding than any other activity in the game - and you might not even ever get it!