The last days I tried my hands on the whole malestrom thing, and I found the experience hilariously comical. I wanted to unlock that caustic sink launcher, and obviously had to start with tissue sampling and all that stuff. From forum chatter, I thought that running cold and fast might make the most sense, so my trusty Dolphin was dusted off and engineered for cold business.
Flying to the malestrom, I noticed 2 things: hyperdiction was so deterministic that every single time I jumped to a malestrom system, Glaives hyperdicted me. Boost away at 560, silent running, wiggle a bit in FAoff, jump out again. Not a single problem, just annoying.
Now, in the system, SC to the malestrom itself gave a bit of a clown impression. The constant stream of interdictions you can easily run away from is incredibly stupid. It is just a time sink, and having the Benny Hill theme in the background would make a fitting sound track.
At last, after tissue-sampling and generator bursting for corrosive mechanisms, the question was how to get caustic shards, because going deep into that acid bath is so hilariously OP deadly that even 2k hull points don't last you long enough. But then I remembered those Glaives... why not farm them for caustic shards? And indeed, with a tanky Corvette all-AX-MC build, even 2 are easy to take on. Just "jump" to the malestrom system, get hyperdicted, face Glaives, reverski, nail them with MC, collect shards, jump back for repairs. The 4.5M credits are a nice bonus as well.
So to summarize, I can't agree with OP regarding Glaives are winning. In contrast I think they are easy targets that help to stay on the band-wagon going on the war-on-rails.
But with everything Elite, it is incredibly hard until you know the trick. Then it is incredibly easy. And I get the impression that it becomes ever more that binary. Almost like a joke.