You did say "or", and I now realize you meant 1 major artifact, and not 1 minor. So apologies for those misunderstandings.
I also do not enjoy the grind aspect of [everything in?] UO, but I'll take this event 1,000 times over trying to train taming again. GGS is a grind spread out a minute at a time, over months and months. Compare that to this event, and I'll take my chances with the invasions.
The point of the invasions, reward-speaking, is to obtain items already obtainable. Those items, outside of this event, require grinding at quite difficult tasks outside of this event. Whether it's soloing SA bosses, or otherwise. I have had far better luck, thusfar, in the invasion than I ever have trying to solo peerless bosses.
The captains are rough, agreed. The Macers, while lacking area affect, hit very hard. Would not want to try that w/o a greater dragon to tank (with a couple healers on it, to boot). Still, I have not found them more difficult than a peerless boss. Others may certainly disagree. (Edited agree to disagree here.)
And the lighthouse drop thing can be annoying that some people will sit there and get their 1. But you know what? Even missing out on a LH last night, I got far more drops working the captains than I did from LHs. So let them sit there and get there 1 drop every 1-3 hours. Maybe in the long run, it will saturate the market of mArties and rewards? And it's nice that even I can get a guaranteed drop from LH. Attack once, and then back to the captains!
Sorry you will not be participating anymore Veritas. Not all events/battles/stories/skills/etc. are for everyone (I, for one, have never figured out how to properly play pure spellcasters, and choose to let those idle on my account). The minion drops are too infrequent, sure, and the campers are annoying (but not any more so than anyone at an EM event solely for an "uber rare", or people who wait for DFs to pop, or PKers who wait for a Fel spawn champ boss to be low on health, or, or, or, or...). I have found good success at the event, and see it as a great way for me to get an item (probably just 1) outside of other means.