Devs have already said they are going to ease up the grind of 2.XX MSQ, plus as I mentioned earlier, the new no synce/reduced party size feature to duties so that friends/fc/etc can help you just burn through them.
From just reading this thread, loudest voices seem to be crying, "but the new players!", even though several new players have spoken up and said it's not that bad of a grind. Reading between the lines, seems the people most against the decision to gate Ishgard, are really saying, "I did the bare minimum of story to reach endgame, I don't want to have to finish rest of the story, plus do HW story to reach 3.XX endgame".
