Am I the only one who hates the era of anniversary era battles?

I agree. That's exactly right.

Yep. I got lucky and beat Tier 2 on dark side. But light side...nothing. I have as suggested,  gear 12s and didn't even beat the first round. 

I'm planning to use crystals to unlock Ezra Exile and Taron Malicos as I feel those are zetas I can utilize for sure as oppose to using them here for short term happiness.

The zetas will not help, Choda’s only applies if all allies are Wookies, Barriss applies to attacker Inquisitors and Luke’s first zeta only applies to Han and Leia.  His leader zeta might have a little application but not enough to justify applying it for this imho.

The better question would be if anyone likes the battles. 

I gotta agree, even as someone who spent a lot on the characters to get them 7* and relic'd, these era battles are horribly balanced. They must expect that even at the g12 tier, that you have maxed out and fully optimized 6 dot mods. I've got proper mods on them all but not fully maxed nor fully optimized and despite being in the relics and 7 stars, the g12 fight was a pain, and then the g13 fight I was entirely obliterated in wave 1. Who balances these and tests them? This just feels like a way to make people regret they spent anything on the era characters when they can't even get the rewards from the era battles.