Labs are tedious, so is runes. Runes is awful if you are a basic, or low VIP with no auto-combine. That was even moved back one VIP level to earn. This "free" game is not very free. You can buy tokens in packages, you can buy synergias for coins, but to get frags you still have to do the long way. These are the only 2 things you have to suffer thru, or spend tons of cash on.
There are easier ways to move quicker, and form helps, once you get Genghis Khan.
If they really wanted to slow us up, rather than make HR near impossible, or stunt us with stop-points, they just needed to not make everything available with gems/cash. We'd all still be moving slowly, more evenly and maybe the Dev's could have kept up with more content. (just one theory)