The real problem is so many of the main story quests are filler. I understand they wanted to make it last from 1-50 with unending questing, but I'd have rather just had a main story quest every 5 levels or whatever without the filler. The story is IMO the best FF... at certain points and moments... but the majority of it is filler, which drags it down as a whole.

As to the complaints about Noraxia, I felt it was largely useless, because Noraxia seemed like a throw-away character in the first place. I think it would have been much more shocking and emotional if it had happened to Minfilia instead of Noraxia.