Sorry, this post turned out to be longer than I expected but I felt this needed a reply. I hope this does not come off as negative, I just wanted to give another perspective as a response to your post. All emphasis is mine.
I just hit lvl 64 today on my cleric and am very close to 64 on my beastlord. The only thing I can say on this topic is any time a 65 talks to me they have all said that at 65 prepare for the worst and most tedious grind of my life. I've already had two friends quit in their thirties due to the idea of tomes, hopefully I will make it up and over the wall. I have met some cool people that are extremely helpful(Thade, Lindstrom, and Habs!) so I'd really like to stick it out here and play with them. Am I excited to raid and grind tomes? Yes and no. I can't say for sure but I will probably end up finding another server/game to play once I have spent the time grinding my first Codex and realize I have another 4 to go + class tomes just to be even remotely close to another raiding beastlord or cleric.
Worst grind? It is all about what you enjoy doing. You don't have to be 50+ tomes to do things in this game. Hell, you don't even need tomes at all up to like t8-9 or w/e. Obviously, they make it easier though (as any character enhancement does). But before tomes (even the CoPs), there was nothing to dump the exp into after the original set of 400-500 aas and eventually, you need something to put exp into because to me, the worst thing is getting exp and having it go into *poof* thin air. At least having a huge wall i have someplace to put the exp that I get.
Also, a currently raiding beastlord already has a head start, if both of you were to progress in exp points at the same rate, you would never catch up until the other bst/clr were finished and didn't have a place to put exp points. So, you have to work much harder if you want to catch up, this is no different than any other game where there is established players (be it cornering the tradeskill market, locking down targets, economies).
Mindless grinds in games don't make a game hard or make someone better at their class. It is also a very poor excuse for "spending time with your friends" because if they were your friends you would have things to do regardless of needing to waste hundreds of hours grinding for tomes/charms. You could be playing alts or crafting or farming or going to zones you haven't gone to before, or questing.
Farm exp points, while farming for charms you gain exp (usually), while questing you usually get exp (from monsters you kill), would you rather it not go anywhere or have a place to put it? As you play this game, you eventually just
get exp by doing things (raiding is another example). The problem that (as far as i understand, i wasn't around when they were first added or if i was i didnt know what they were) CoPs were to solve was this problem of having nothing left to put exp points into.
I like spending time with friends on this game but while i spend time, I like to do things to progress. I feel like your stance is you don't want too many things to put your exp into because it is too daunting? I am not sure I get what you really want. There are many people who just enjoy the game and don't grind tomes but for the people that do or the people that have been around long enough that run out of things to do, they have the "daunting" tasks. Sometimes, just exping with friends IS the "things" to do.
Time and time has shown game developers that when you put in something that could make characters that much stronger - it will end up a requirement. Budzone nailed my thoughts to the finest degree. People will sink as many hours as they want into a game with or without time sinks. As an outsider to the end game, this thread alone makes me hesitant on wanting to advance.
So, putting stronger/better items/things in the game isn't desirable? You basically said to the devs to stop developing and adding new things because it eventually ends up as a requirement (i.e. relics are good examples of this other than cops). But when there are nice things in the game that are challenging to get, people decide to not hang out with the people that don't have those nice things yet, it is the choice that some players make (unfortunately). Also, quite frankly sometimes if you don't have nice things, you can not do content that requires those nice things in order to not waste time dying repeatedly.
tl;dr - Don't fret, dont need tomes for a lot of the raiding content anyways, tomes are there so that you don't run out of things to do, just kill pixels with friends.
