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I don't see any problems with placing the Grail in a confluence or a tower. I've played many games without rules, and no one rushed to dig for the Grail.

I agree. In many tournament games without rules, I never dug for it. Although I always wanted to.
However, about 15 years ago, I gathered like-minded people in the city of Dreamcatcher, 8 people. We played in a circle. We played Might and Magic without a dungeon. Out of 7 games, I managed to place the Grail in 2 of them. I lost one of these games due to a conflict: my opponent took a couple of utopias before attacking my castle.
About 6 years ago, I played with a friend according to the rules, but we allowed digging for the Grail. We played a Large map, with a 2cm4d3 template. Based on the three obelisks, I determined that the Grail was located on my starting area, near the Guardian. I started digging with 3-4 heroes. After a week (3-4 attempts with all heroes), I dug up the Grail. My opponent, seeing that I had stopped digging for the Grail (and even then, before the mod, you could right-click on your capital and see the income in the opponent's capital) and the movement of my Hero towards the capital, immediately surrendered. Since then, we started playing according to the rules )).
I've played several games in GameRanger. I sometimes dug up the Grail (I didn't play maps larger than Large-U in GameRanger).
P.S. IMHO, obelisks often have artifacts and strong guards, which often creates blockades. That's why I like War of the Ancients, because there are no obelisks and the probability of a blockade is reduced, and accordingly, fewer restarts due to blockades.