Assault:
Facing the anti-Sicilians IS fun once you understand how to play for a win. It takes some experience, but I would recommend looking at e.g. Kasparov's games when facing anti-Sicilians. Another good source (that helped me immensely) is Kiril Georgiev's treatments against the various antis in The Sharpest Sicilian.
Now when I see the Closed, Smith-Morra, and other trash, I am happy and expect to win.
A matter of taste I suppose. I played the sveshnikov exclusively against 1.e4 for about a year and half, so I had some experience in the sicilian.
I think I read 3 books (fighting anti sicilians, experts on anti sicilian and rogozenkos book on anti-sicilians) and watched many video lectures, but I could never find systems against the grand prix or closed that I actually enjoyed playing.
Thats real strange. I get a lot of those but being a very strict sicilian player- I always play c5 for black. I mostly get the najdorf with BE3. 75% of the time. If I start playing at the lower levels. (NO Offense) They tend to play the smith morra more often and the anti sicilian I do see once every so often. Mostly English Najdorf though.
You should try to play 15 Sicilian games here on chess.com to see what you get and then report back. The Alapin has been very popular with my opponents recently, I think it could be because of FM Alisa Melekhina's c3 Sicilian video on youtube that has gotten a ton of views.
I don't think that youtube video has any influence on how many people are playing c3 Sicilians nowadays, she is just so FINE!!~