To be clear, my complaint was relatively minor, more just a "bah, more of this crap" style thing than "what the hell game?" As I said, I fully recognize it's there as a catch up mechanic, and little else.
Though, it reminds me how people say a good idea when you're new is to do the first 50 mithril pull you can ASAP, regardless of banner, since at that point what 5* you get will be hugely valuable, on top of which you're filling your inventory with lots of 3* and possibly 4*, which will be a significant improvement over the 1* and 2* crap you've likely been relying on.
THAT SAID, back to the item drop thing, I seem to recall there was an event that gave an off-Realm item...something like an FF8 event giving an FF5 item? That makes no sense, since the whole point is "here's some Realm Synergy to give you a fighting chance against some of the harder stuff" without actually being enough for higher end elites (let alone bonus fights.) Not having realm synergy makes the drops kind of lackluster.