The main point that's been made by others in this thread is that key story elements should not be tied to content that is essentially not accessible to everyone due to the need to have a static (nothing at all to do with level of difficulty - these raids are simply memorization of mechanics). SE has done a good job of avoiding this when it comes to the regular mode primals. They're a well balanced level of difficulty with NO reward other than advancement of the story. The rewards come from doing the difficult version of that content.

SE screwed up by putting very significant story content in Coil to begin with. A better method would have been to have a story mode version and an extreme version right from the start. Just like in the story mode primals, the current extreme version of Coil would depend on clearing the previous release of Coil extreme. Story Coil would only require advancement of the story up to that point.

There will never be harmony between the "elitists" and the "casual" players. Casual players want to be INCLUDED in content. Elitists want others to specifically be EXCLUDED from content because their whole satisfaction stems from the opinion that they are better than others. How can I show the world my awesomeness if everyone else is doing the same thing as me?