Now that it's all said and done, I'm not completely disappointed with the quests. Yes, they're still artificial barriers, but they aren't terrible. The Darker Cores can drop from Gwandha's arms, so it's basically 1 Free Desert run for the first quest.
The second quest is all boss runs (usually with the more useful weapon type for the boss) on Hard. Boss runs on the hardest difficulty are never a complete waste of time. I got a Vol Tail, for instance

. The Vol Dragons were the worst part, of course. Rockbears and Gwandha's spawn 3 at a time if you have friends... Vol Dragon was a guaranteed 5 runs.
But less than 2 hours and you had yourself a new class. Unfortunately I have to do it again for Techer in a bit. Still think they should've just gave it to us and made a quest like this a requirement for using the class as a Sub in October, or something.