Here’s how I see it:
There’s three problems with essence and fixing any one of them would make the other two much more managable.
1: Dark sea islands are far too big.
2: Essence is far too rare.
3: There is no indicator for essence.
So if I’m supposed to cluelessly search an orthys sized island, the odds should be good.
If I’m supposed to search orthys sized islands with bad odds, then I should know if what I’m looking for is even there.
If I’m supposed to cluelessly search a whole lot of dark sea islands, they should be reasonably sized.
If more than one of these problems were solved then honestly it’d be incredibly easy.