How many 1* characters do other gacha games have that are literally just pack fillers?
...So? Genshin's filler not being characters doesn't really change anything
And if you're complaining how "grindy" GI is, that's just how rpgs work.
You're either terrible at RPGs or exclusively play gacha games. Mandatory grinding hasn't really been a common design choice since, like, the 16 bit era