1:10 between tiers? You mean 1 simple relic t5 would cost 10000 t1. That's hilarious suggestion, because it would not change anything. 1:2 between tiers wouldn't be too generous. I'd love if eq. t1+t2+t3 provide more t4 tokens than t4 alone. Because someone who joins three raids a week is more valuable to community, so also for Funcom than raid logger who does t4 once a week.
Population isn't growing. Every action taken to stimulate activity is worth taken. Especially if with relics exchanges would be possible to fake new content by adding new items more often than new raids. It'd give reasons to repeat old fights and creating new items takes way less time than new instance with new mechanics.