Ugh, I know. I'm only on my second playthrough, but I've already decided to skip shards and astrariums, even though the astrariums can give some nice loot. I never even bothered trying to collect all the mosaic pieces. And screw trying to find all the stupid Assassin's Creed landmark BS either. What a complete waste.
What the heck man. I find mosaics and shards boring and don't bother to do them most of the time. But Astrariums are awesome. I'd pay cash for an iPhone game that was nothing but Astrarium puzzles. Although once you learn the trick about odd numbers of connections, they become kinda trivial.