I don't think farming materials is actually a mistake at all. Farming is a part of any MMO. While I agree that the method people employed (due to its efficiency) was the best way at the time, I honestly think that if they fold those rewards in with missions, make things a bit more varied, and generally inject some interesting shit into Patrol modes, that farming will be much less painful by and large... but could be made substantially easier by slotting appropriate farming gear. So. Was the initial iteration of Glimmer and material farming boring and shitty? Yeah, definitely. Is it a bad idea? Not intrinsically, no. Being able to go out and progress tangibly towards something sometimes means 'making sure you have enough cash in your pocket' or 'making sure there's enough material in your bank'. That's a baby step, but it -is- a step, and part of the reward structure of games like this revolves quite squarely around preparing for an upcoming event (see: getting Gjallarhorn, running the raid and finding items you need, etc.) and the reward chemicals that our stupid monkey-brains squirt out when we are presented with an event for which we have prepared in advance.