The fact RNG has always been part of MMO's in the past does not justify its continued use. A loot system that gives instant gratification to some and repeated nothing to others is not good game design, it is old, skinner box design that was first put in place because no one came up with anything better.

Randomness can be a good thing within limits and in certain contexts. Random placement of a treasure chest to find? cool, hunting time. Random stats on a gear drop? not so cool, that renders a lot of generated gear inferior as showcased in D3.

Random additional stats on gear? That could be awesome if thought out well. If some piece of gear always had the same core stats, but there was a random element to a subset of stats, that could be the best of both worlds because all the versions of the gear could still be viable even if only 1 was optimal.

Now what if there was a token system for Ifrit that would yield a weapon after lets say 30 kills, but the weapon is not the same one as the weapon drop? Lets say the weapon is not quite as good as the main drop, but still sufficient to move onto the next content? That would put a cap on the number of runs you absolutely had to do in order to advance, but still give a reason to go after the random drop since it's the superior weapon.

If you think that's a bad idea, what method would you use? if you prefer the status quo, could you elaborate on why you think instant gratification and a progression stonewall randomly distributed by luck is a good method?