All I see is content nerfs.

[synaesthetic]

You make it sound as if catering to both playerbases is mutually exclusive. There's really no part of the storyline that requires you to complete extreme mode primals. Casual players can completely skip them and obtain comparable ilevel90 gear from myth tomes.

I would agree with you on this except for one thing: they're not adding enough content for this to work. There's not enough content in FFXIV to just say "oh, this content isn't designed for us, let's do this other stuff." What other stuff is there to do?

Gear is completely irrelevant. Seriously, at this point the only reason I try to get gear is how it looks. Gear is useless without something to use it on, and the less skilled players who don't have the same determination as more dedicated players don't really have anything to do. Labyrinth of the Ancients is way too easy, but for most people Coil and Extreme primals are way too hard. There's really no middle ground here (except maybe Ultima HM, which is probably the single most well-designed piece of content added in 2.1).

So right now yes, it is mutually exclusive, and Square-Enix would be far better suited financially to cater more toward the far more numerous part of their playerbase. That's what they're doing. Now, I would agree with you if they would be adding something meaningful for the "mid-tier" players to sink their teeth into, while the "high-tier" players work on Coil. Except they aren't. CT is a joke.