AK can be done in AF. And if you want to know what I've done with my main class, here it is:

1) Get the best GC accessories.
2) Get my AF gear once I got to 50.
3) Finish the story. Just one run to Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium (I would have done more runs to help on the DF with the shortage of tanks, but I just hate what I found there community wise).
4) A couple of runs to Ifrit HM to get a weapon, both as MT and OT.
5) Run Wanderer's Palace 5-6 times and get some ilvl 55 gear plus more tomes.
6) Buy a Darklight piece with what I had gathered while doing 3) and 5) to improve my worse gear piece.
7) Run AK. Currently doing that to get more tomes, get the cap on Myths, and get some ilvl 60 gear. No hurries on that, but I do at least one run per day, without forcing (key word here) myself to do more than that if I don't feel like doing so. Also, I've even cleared the Demon Wall with more than 20% left with just me and the healer (a FC mate) alive, so I guess that my gear is more than enough for that dungeon even if I'm "just" the tank (note: I'm not saying that I'm pr0, as I think that I'm just an average tank).
8) Complete my relic weapon slowly, without any hurries.

What's next? Once I have some more Darklight parts I'll go to Garuda to get a new weapon (ilvl 70), while doing more weekly AK runs to finish my Darklight and get some relic armor parts on the process. Then try Titan for an ilvl 80 weapon, complete the relic armor and the relic weapon (or even try Coil), etc.

I know that I'm not going for the easy and optimal way to get my gear, but at least I'm not disrupting anyone by doing so (i.e. DF CM speedruns). I hope that at least someone finds this useful or something, or that it at least illustrates that the dungeon progresion is fine and that it's the players the ones that are messing it up themselves, IMHO. SE shouldn't have to police us so that we play the game properly, as they did with the WP and AK fixes.

Of course, doing AK in full DL will save you... ehm... 10 minutes? And yes, it's easier and it gives you more room to make mistakes, but it takes away the fun (the reason we're playing a game, after all), at least for me. Also, I'll never know why some people say that there's a lot of trash mobs in AK. There's more trash in previous dungeons than in that one, and they're easy to kill. But well, to each his own, I guess.