A dev already came in and responded.. so the idea of an easier version of coil strictly for story is out.. but I kinda wanted to repeat one of the posts I made earlier on, or the idea in it.. as it doesn't apply to strictly that.
A good MMO is going to have a good mix of content both for skilled players (those that possess reaction times and are capable of quickly learning new mechanics) and content for unskilled players (those who maybe lost some reaction time with age, didn't have the reaction time to begin with, or are notoriously slow learners). It will have content that satisfies multiple groups, and not just the hardcore, or the casual. Keep in mind that what seems like easy mode for you or I, is not easy mode for everyone across the board. Difficulty will vary on the individual and it's important to have content that's difficult for a wide variety of skillsets and not just cater to one crowd. That means open world content as well as instanced content and so on. It would be nice if people could focus more on having fun themselves, and be less concerned with how others are enjoying their time.
That isn't to say that I think the best gear shouldn't be reserved for defeating the hardest content.. I certainly think it should be. However, people shouldn't be against content being developed what-so-ever for a particular crowd. In the end, the company can see where their player's are. They know how many people are doing raids/dungeons.. and they'll be able to weigh the overall benefit. Just because content seems easy for you specifically, doesn't make it bad content in general. It makes it content not suited for you.. and it's okay to have that in MMOs..not everything needs to suit everyone all the time. The importance is a mix. FFXIV is lacking that at this time.. in several areas (note that also isn't saying I'm not having fun with the game, I just recognize it's flaws as well).
Also, how do we define whether a game has failed? Is it just on whether it has a subscription fee? Many people actually prefer no subscription fee and that would be a win in their case. Is it financial numbers? Most games recover immensely upon going F2P, not because they changed core mechanics of their game to be less casual/hardcore friendly. Number of people playing? Again, most people gain tons of people playing (and more "subscriptions/monthly payments") after going F2P.
For me, I consider it a failure if it goes F2P.. I simply don't play F2P games as my main MMO. For the company though, I would say player numbers/money show F2P isn't actually a sign of failure. Closing down the game completely (a la Shadowbane) certainly would be. In that sense, none of the MMOs that have come out recently have been failures.. they've just had to re-evaluate their payment models (not their gameplay design).