I'd still say if you ignored the meta end-game and just wanted to enjoy the game as a once through experience it is worth it. I really enjoyed my time working through the challenging Abyss, Labyrinth, World Difficulty, and Raid fights. It does require some grinding to do that, to maybe level 60 2-3 characters. But the grinding we're all doing with this event now is entirely unnecessary to enjoy the base game. Most people are just grinding out to min/max characters for high end PvP, Abyss 80+, or Hell raid. New players shouldn't feel rushed to do these events and probably shouldn't partake in them unless they really want to do some idle farming (I farm a lot while watching TV, playing other games, even reading books).
You don't need to buy all the epic catalysts from the shop, unless you want to 6* awaken a character, which is probably the worst bang for buck investment in the game. +6% health could easily be found on a piece of gear.
Yeah, I mean people are already beating Golem 11 with Sol at Level 50. He's a great unit as is.
That all being said
Chopchop and not to discourage you, but by the time you are ready to tackle the most difficult content there will have been new characters released that you can go after then. Like people are saying, Baiken isn't super great, and you could low effort the event to just get Sol from the story reward. Maybe Dizzy will be worth it, but grinding out records doesn't make sense right now unless you want to heavily invest in Baiken with the catalysts from the shop. if Dizzy turns out awesome and you pull her and want to fully awaken her, then yeah maybe grind out her currency. But definitely pick and choose your battles here.
The worst thing you can do in a Gacha is try to extend yourself to far to tackle content too early. Right now these Side Stories are geared (stupidly) towards teams that can auto Hell.
I really hate that this event is discouraging new players from what is a fantastic game at it's base and I'm part of the problem with the complaining, so trying to make a positive post here :)