I've (fairly recently) written an article on the issues of the difficulty of Alex Savage and I wanted to share my thoughts with you all. Maybe build upon it or criticize. I'm always looking for criticism. :)
Anyway, here's the article:
Adjusting the Difficulty: Final Fantasy XIV's Raid Woes
I think you hit a lot of problems on the head but a major contributor to the games problems doesn't just lie in the raiding scene although they do become apparent in it and that clarity trickles down to other areas of the game.
A major problem that's pretty obvious is the dps meta. The lack of barriers between the trinity cause problems for people who pick a healer or tank role to do their specified job only to find out their expected to pull 900+ dps on PLD and 600+ dps on healer. I've been in dungeon parties where someone calls the healer bad for not stance dancing in-between healing and I've heard many people comment that they consider a healer pulling zero dps during a fight a bad healer.
Now this problem is of my own opinion but I find the stats on armor and weapons to be pretty lack-luster. Parry especially. The other stats bother me as well like skill speed and spell speed are pretty sub par compared to determination and crit. In all honesty I think the stat system should be overhauled.