It probably took less than an hour of talks into making that item become a grind, if you genuinely feel that isn't lazy time filler content then well I don't know anymore. It seems partially integral to the raid so it kinda seems mandatory to some extent and outside of the passive it offers nothing to the character whatsoever. I've been on the PTR and you can upgrade it 15 times, do that on each of your characters when live 8.3 hits and come back and tell me if you found that enjoyable among all the other things you feel obligated to grind out.
If I had but one character I wouldn't be having an opinion on any of this it'd be fine.