I actually "liked" all the comments here. That's a first for any thread I've read. In any case, it seems the discussion seems to be on the FA and the Spire. And I agree. The paltry rewards for the FA are, in many cases, not why you do the FA, but on the other hand, if you are in a small or even medium sized fellowship it's can be hard to get through the three stages. In my opinion, the rewards for each stage should grow. The first stage is about right, but in the second perhaps each of the things rewarded in the first should double? And in the third, double again? There are an awful lot of fs's that can't/don't do all three stages and perhaps that would encourage them to do so....meaning stronger fellowships as doing things together tends to do this, and more participation.
As for the Spire, I agree that winning 7-9 artifacts you can never use (unless you accidentally or on purpose delete your old evolving building and have/want to rebuild it), is pretty silly. It's really saying, to the player, "you won nothing!" when they "win." Probably the best option is for the system to know what artifacts the player might need and to give them. So if I have a base in my inventory and less than 9 artifacts to match it, I would get an artifact for it. Having an option to choose something else is probably, from a coding and server load stand point, much easier to implement.
In any case, this thread is a good one and I'm glad it was started.
AJ