I noticed how it felt like the story was taking too long, but it was also being heavily realistic with things. Of course we're not going to just go to the island, we're having to follow proper protocol. Of course the Garleans are understandably traumatized by the last time the tower went on and still don't trust others. Of course we're having to set thing up to actually reach Golbez and the 13th's moon. It felt boring, but it was being fairly realistic with things.
Also, keep in mind that they DO change writers for some of the patches. The new writer who'll be doing 7.0 worked on 4.2 (collaboration), 4.4, 5.1 (collaboration), and 5.5's story, while there were others working on other patches story.
