Yep, it’s pretty demoralizing. I bet it’s no less frustrating on public PVE servers and could be even worse, depending, as other players who happen to see your Surge could just run over and steal or kill your hard-earned thralls with almost no personal risk, since you can’t fight back.
Maelstrom spawns need to drop more ??? per spawn kill than they do currently, summoned surges need to have more guarantees in what they will spit out, and wild surges should have a chance (or better chance, if it’s just my luck) of yielding T2-3 crafter thralls.
And don’t get me started on convergence traps, which can be destroyed in a single bite from the lowliest of the Maelstrom spawns.